Water and sanitation project for Accra

The World Bank is to finance a sanitation and water project for Accra which is expected to bring a transformational access to safe water and improved sanitation service delivery. Ama Amankwah Baafi reports

The US$150 million Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) project to be implemented this year with emphasis on how to improve access to sanitation water service delivery to low income communities, the World Bank said.

The Sector Leader for Sustainable Development at the World Bank Ghana Office, Mr Waqar Haider, disclosed this at a consultative forum with a section of the media in Accra on the bank’s new strategy on Ghana, the “Country Partnership Strategy”.

Mr Haider said water and sanitation were areas that the bank was extremely concerned about, particularly with the inability of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to make profit, a situation which had made it difficult for the company to reinvest in expansion and improvement in service delivery.

Yet, he recalled, attempts to reform the company, which brought in management contract among others initiatives, had just not yielded the desired results, though water as a basic necessity for everyday life, businesses and commercial ventures.

“Water and sanitation in Ghana presents an extremely dysmal situation so we are trying to move away from the convention of financing assets of GWCL to a results-based arrangement. We are now starting with GAMA project where 31 municipalities in and around Accra will be provided with access to water and sanitation services,” he explained.

Mr Haider said the bank would basically focus attention on low income communities through transparent and documentation process.

“This project will go the board on May 30, 2013 and it is another way of trying to basically crack the nut,” he said.

On assertion that institutions in the sector lack capacity to implement policies, he said, the bank was in the scheme of things going at the grassroots level, basically at the local government level and engage the community and useful bodies at the local government level.

He admitted that clearly there was capacity gap also at that level but at least in terms of ownership of the project, there was a much stronger one. Therefore, the project will build capacity within the implementing institutions.

He added that the project was also intended to move from approaches centred on Accra, saying “We did have GWCL basically responsible for water provision in the country but had limitation, so we are basically trying to work with local governments, while at the time enhancing their capacity,” he added.

The 2013 Budget statement reported that under the Water and Sanitation Component of the Local Services Delivery and Governance Programme (LSDGP), 404 new boreholes were constructed and fitted with hand pumps last year, 65 boreholes rehabilitated and fitted with new hand pumps, two piped schemes rehabilitated while 40 rainwater harvesting schemes were completed.

Also eight piped schemes based on ground water were completed and feasibility studies completed for two additional ground-water based piped schemes.

According to the budget, extending surface based piped schemes to 37 communities in the Greater Accra Region was 80 per cent complete, while 156 institutional latrines as well as 24 Ferro tanks were completed.

In 2013, the budget expects a revision in the national water policy document to incorporate new ideas, while it leads the development of rain water harvesting strategy to guide the water sector and water-related actors in the promotion of rainwater harvesting as a supplement to water service delivery. GB