By Dennis Peprah, GNA
Jema (BE/R), June 05, GNA – Nana Afia Amobeah, the Queen mother of Jema, Kintampo South District of the Bono East Region, has expressed worry over the poor and worsening water supply situation in the area, having devastating effects on households.
She said the situation was so bad that women and school children had to struggle every day to access potable water, adding: “Water is now an expensive commodity in Jema”.
Nana Amobeah, also the Leader of the Women Caucus for Responsive and Inclusive Governance (WOCA4RIG) project, said the irregular water supply from the Jema Water Supply System (JWSS), had forced households to buy water from private local suppliers at high costs.
The project is being implemented by the Centre for Migration and Africa Development (CeMAD) a women-led non-governmental organization in the Kintampo South District.
It is funded by the Plan International Ghana and Global Affairs Canada, under their Women Voice and Leadership project.
WOCA4RIG is an advocacy association of women groups, including hairdressers, seamstresses, and market women, women with disability and women in politics formed to demand accountability from duty-bearers.
Speaking at a meeting of the Caucus held at Jema, the Kintampo South District capital, Nana Amobeah called on the Jema Water Supply System to open up and share their challenges with the unit committee, NGOs, assembly members and the traditional authorities to help tackle the poor water supply challenges.
“The erratic water supply situation keeps worsening and duty bearers have to collaborate with all relevant stakeholders and find a lasting solution to it”, she said.
Mr Kumi Yeboah, the Manager of the JWSS, appealed to the residents to use water wisely as management found ways to address the problem.
He said the JWSS was financially handicapped, unable to expand its scope of operations and pump water regularly and that government institutions in the district owed the System huge sums of money.
This had consequently slowed down expansion works, Mr Yeboah said, and called on those institutions to pay their accumulated debts for the System to run efficiently for improved water supply.
Mr Isaac Kwabena Appiah, the Project Coordinator of CeMAD, urged the management of the JWSS to be proactive and tackle the problem once and for all, saying management of the System ought to collaborate with the District Assembly to construct mechanized boreholes for the people.
He expressed the fear that if the problem was not addressed, there could be possible outbreak of water borne diseases with the onset of the rains and appealed to other NGOs to go to the community’s aid.
Established in 2017, CeMAD worked to provide socio-economic interventions to deprived and under-served communities in the country.
More than 2,000 people have benefited from its community development programmes to date.
GNA
