18 Volta Region communities to get boreholes under CWSA

Osramani, (V/R), April 23, GNA - The Volta Region Community Water and Sanitation Agency (VRCWSA) is to provide 28 boreholes in 18 communities and mount pumps on 45 others in the Kete-Krachi District this year at a cost of 1.2 billion cedis.

Since the Agency began operations in the District two years ago, it has drilled 40 boreholes, rehabilitated 63 others drilled by the erstwhile Volta Region Agriculture Development Programme and carried out a number of interventions to contain guinea worm outbreaks in some endemic communities.

Mr Alex Opare-Akunor, District Engineer of the VRCWSA, made this known to the Ghana News Agency at Osramani, where an abandoned Volta River Authority (VRA) underground water pumping machine and VORADEP boreholes were rehabilitated at a cost of 100 million cedis.

The project was an intervention against guinea worm outbreak in the community. Mr Opare-Akunor said since the pumping station went into operation, the guinea worm disease, which incapacitated more than half of the town's population, no longer posed a threat to the people.

Mr Osei Yaw, Denteh Zonal Co-ordinator of the Guinea Worm Programme, confirmed this. Meanwhile, plans are almost completed to provide an integrated and expanded water supply system for the town.

Mr Opare-Akunor said, however, that the existence of small ponds on remote farms in the District posed a big threat to the Guinea Worm Eradication Programme.

He, therefore, appealed to chiefs and opinion leaders to convince their people to disclose the locations of such ponds to the VRCWSA and its collaborating agencies.

Mr Francis Yaw Sarfo, Kete-Krachi District Chief Executive, said the assembly had made four million cedis available for the purchase of fuel to run the Osramani pumping station.

Mr Origo Donkor, local Water and Sanitation Committee Chairman, said it decided to charge 50 cedis instead of 120 cedis per container of water to encourage more people to use safe water.

He said the new water supply system had greatly relieved the community of their perennial water problem and saved them from the guinea worm menace. He appealed to the VRA to extend electricity to the pumping station to reduce its running cost and facilitate the expansion of water supply from the station to the rest of the community.