Following huge investments in the water sector by the Mills/Mahama National Democratic Congress government, water supply in the country, particularly the capital city, Accra, has improved drastically.
This positive development, The aL-hAJJ’s investigations have uncover, have virtually reduced the carrying of yellow plastic jelly cans, popularly referred to as “Kufuor gallon”, on the streets in search of water by residents in most suburbs of the nation’s capital and other urban areas across the country.
This paper’s checks have revealed that unlike previous where residents in urban centers are seen carrying the “Kufuor gallons” in dire search of water; the situation has in recent times improved significantly. “The water situation has improved, I don’t want to say it is over because I don’t know if we will face that problem again, but the fact is that we no longer carry the yellow gallons in search of water,” a resident of McCarthy Hill told this paper.
Reports are that places in Accra that have over the years not had water flow through their taps are now enjoying constant water flow following major expansion works on some water supply systems in the country.
Early this year government secured US$260Million loan from the Chinese government with a support of US$13million coming from the Ghana government to help expand the water supply system from Kpong by another 40Million gallons of water per day.
The successful completion of this project has led to a situation where Adentan and its environs in the Greater Accra Region that have not had water flow through their tapes in the last two decades, now breathing a sigh of relief because water is today flowing in those areas.
A resident of Adentan, Lawrence Mawutor, recently posted this on facebook on the water situation in Adentan, “well for now the situation is better than ever and we thank the Ghana Water Company for that and we hope that it will reach others too”
President John Mahama early this year revealed that government has over the past five years invested over one million dollars in the water sector.
Inaugurating Ghana’s first ever desalination water project located at Nungua in Accra, the President said “Over the past five years we have spent more than $1 billion dollars on water supply projects across the country alone. We have therefore achieved an average water access of coverage of 76% with good drinking water.” The project, which produces 13 million gallons of water daily to residents of Teshie and its environs, according to the President, have made the struggle for yellow gallons and poly tanks redundant.
“The struggle with yellow jericans and numerous polytanks have been made redundant or drastically reduced in many communities,” he noted.
He added that “with this achievement, we have caught up with Accra’s water demand and indeed we have overtaken Accra’s average water demand,” President Mahama said, adding that communities such as Kpong, Kyebi, Essakyir and Mampong have already had expanded water-producing facilities.
Meanwhile, The aL-hAJJ has gathered that the John Mahama government is pushing to achieve 85% water coverage by end of year 2017.
<<Print>>