By: Shallom Lumor | Voltaonlinegh.com |
Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) is embarking on rehabilitation projects on broken down water systems and those on the verge of breaking down to make potable water accessible to citizens of the Volta Region including the newly carved out region, Oti.
A joint government Ghana and GTZ project is spending about 2 million Ghana cedis on rehabilitating water systems in Dambai, Banda, Akatsi, Kwamekrom, Taviefe, Vakpo, and Nkwanta.
Others include, Damonko, Kpassa, Kete-Krachi, Adidome, Kpandai and Chinderi.
The project which started about a month ago is expected to be completed by April 2019 in all the beneficiary communities.
Speaking with Volta Regional Director of CWSA, Ing. Divine Dugbartey, he said CWSA realised some malfunctions after change of management of the systems from the Water and Sanitation Management Teams (WSMT) in the various communities.
Ing Dugbartey said CWSA conducted a research on all the systems under its management and the results revealed that supply of safe water was a major problem to many communities.
According to him, since most of the systems were designed to supply to only a small number of residents of the various systems, it was becoming difficult to serve larger communities with the same structures.
“This necessitated the action of quickly rehabilitating the water systems in order to help these communities” he stressed.
Detailing the progect, Regional Hydro-geologist, Mr. Benjamin Yeboah said, the project included rehabilitation of the intake structures and treatment plants on the surface system (Damanko Kpassa and Adidome), rehabilitation of pump houses, transmission lines, distribution lines, appurtenances on the transmission and distribution lines, storage tanks and public standpipes and installation of pumps.
Mr. Yeboah explained that “the major achievement we seek here is to improve upon the quality, quantity, accessibility and the reliability of water supply in beneficiary communities.”
The Reform
Government of Ghana established the CWSA by Act of Parliament (Act 564) to facilitate the provision of safe drinking water to rural communities and small towns. The Agency implements its mandate using the National Community Water and Sanitation Programme (NCWSP).
The management concept adopted under NCWSP was the concept of Community Ownership and Management (COM). Under the COM model, WSMTs were formed to see to the operation and overall management of water systems.
After several years of implementation of COM, numerous studies confirmed a lot of sustainability challenges with investments in the sector.
It was concluded that for Ghana to achieve SDG6, there was the need to change the management structure of water supply in rural communities and small towns.
This prompted the reform agenda in CWSA to transform the Rural WASH sector, sustain water system for delivery of safe and reliable water supply.
CWSA Volta Regional office took charge of the management of six water systems in the region and earmarked several others for the reform programme.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
