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| Fresh Waters |
Government has been tasked to fulfill its promise of committing $400 million in the national budget to fund water and sanitation.
At the second high-level meeting on Sanitation and Water for All in Washington DC held last April, three Ministers of State, including Ghana’s former Finance Minister, Dr. Kwabena Duffour, who presented Ghana’s statement, promised to allocate $400 million to the WASH sector annually but this has not been fulfilled.
A group of environmental journalists interested in water, sanitation and hygiene issues, known as Ghana Water and Sanitation Journalists Network, which appealed to government, recalled that in 2010 a similar commitment was made at the first high level meeting on Sanitation and Water For All in Washington DC, during which Government of Government promised $350 per annum to the WASH sector from 2011 to 2015.
“We ask where is the money?” Deputy Coordinator, Edmund Smith Ashanti quizzed at a press conference in Accra.
The group said the commitments made at the meeting prioritized sanitation and water.
However, according to data available, access to sanitation in Ghana is among the lowest in the world while about 70 per cent of out-patient attendance in the country is due to poor sanitation.
“Although current statistics show that Ghana is on her way to even surpass its MDG target for water, there are still millions without access to potable water while national sanitation coverage is woefully inadequate and only 14 out of 100 Ghanaians currently have access to improved sanitation,” the group said in its statement
This notwithstanding, 19 out of 100 Ghanaians, representing 4.8 million, practice open defecation daily in bushes, storm drains, black polythene bags among others.
With the annual growth of one percentage point, the group pointed out that it would take 40 years for Ghana to reach the MDG target of 54 per cent while the economic and health impact of this situation cannot be underestimated.
The Water and Sanitation Programme (WSP) of the World Bank estimates that Ghana loses about US$240 million annually due these problems.
Ghana, according to statistics, is not set to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target for sanitation.
2.3 million women and girls, who lack access to toilets, practice open defecation every day while 2.5 million men and boys do same.
Annually, women and girls spend 425 million hours to find locations to ease themselves, according to WaterAid Ghana.
Ibrahim Musah, Head of policy and partnership at WaterAid Ghana, speaking at the press conference, noted that the high level meeting on Sanitation and Water for All called for political commitment backed by declaration for action.”
The group called for information on how much government allocation goes to the Ministry of Water Resources, Ghana Water Company Limited and the Community Water & Sanitation Agency, among others, to address water problems in Ghana.
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