Over 350,000 residents of Navrongo, Bolgatanga, Zuarungu and other adjoining communities have been relieved of the burden of walking long distances to access potable and clean drinking water.
Water they say is life and clean drinking water is a basic necessity but the many residents of Ghana’s Upper region have been suffering for lack of it as they would have to wake up at odd hours to look for water while some depend on borehole water to solve their water needs.
That is for Urban dwellers (those living in Bolgatanga and Navrongo) but in the case of rural dwellers who are in the majority, the idea of ever getting connected to the nation’s water supply line remained a dream. As part of a day’s working visit to Ghana’s Upper East region on Friday, August 5, 2022, the President, Nana Akuffo Addo commissioned and handed over a €37.6 million Upper East Region Water Supply Project in line with his government policy to provide clean drinking for all Ghanaians. Tripling the former supply regime of 1.5 million gallons a day to about 4.5 million gallons a day and spanning a supply reach of over 350,000 people.
President indicated that “to increase the design horizon from 2030 to 2040, to make adequate provision for future demand in line with our policy to construct water projects taking into consideration future population growth” and to go beyond the Sustainable Development Goal Six that calls for ” availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”.
The scope of the project
The Managing Director (MD), for the Ghana Water Company, Ing. Dr. Clifford A. Braimah took the moment of the day to walk the President and his entourage through the design, nature and scope of the project.
He explained that under the project, the following activities were undertaken; Construction of a new raw water intake at the Tono reservoir including a pumping station and raw water transmission pipeline; Design and construction of a new 20,50m³/day (4.5MGD) water treatment plant located at Tono; Construction of 68km transmission pipeline and 71km distribution network to transport drinking water to consumers, construction of 600m³ and 400³ new elevated water reservoir at Navrongo and Zuarungu respectively and the rehabilitation of the existing Vea water treatment plant to bring its capacity to 5,000m³ per day.
So far phases one and two have all been completed comprising a total of twenty thousand, five hundred (20,500) cubic metres of water per day, which is approximately four and a half million gallons (4.5 million) of water per day, a three-fold increase from the 1.5 million gallons a day originally available to the Upper East Region.
Over the last few months since the completion of this multi-million Euro project, the GWCL has had more than 4800 new customers according to data made available to mywordfmonline.com by the company. The beneficiary communities include; Navrongo, Paga, Tono, Bolgatanga, Zarre, Sumbrungu, Kalbeo, Bongo, Yorogo, Zuarungu, Gambibigo, Winkogo, Tindonmologo, Gambibigo, Winkogo, Bongo, Yorogo, et.al covering at least two municipalities and four districts out of the 15 districts administrative districts in the Upper East region.
These districts and municipal are Kassena Nankana East, Kassena Nankana West, Bolgatanga and Bolgatanga East, and Bongo and Talensi Districts.The MD, also call on customers to pay their bills on time so that the company would be able to maintain the project and continue to supply water timely and continually. “Pay your water bills on time to help maintain the water infrastructure, so we can continue to have access to Portable water.”
Source of funding for the project:
On behalf of the government and people of the Netherlands, who provided partial funding for this project, the Dutch Ambassador to Ghana, Jeroen Verheul said that he was ” extremely proud and happy that the Dutch were part of the construction of this important project” and called for similar partnerships in the future. The project was partly financed by €12.3 million grant from the Netherlands government and €25. 3 million loans from the ING Bank NV of Belgium.
The construction of the completed Upper East Water Supply Project commenced in January 2019 by a Belgium multidisciplinary construction firm, DENYS Group and is expected to meet the growing demand for clean water for people and industry in this part of Ghana for the next two decades.
By: Adekurah Wisdom/mywordfmonline.com.