Ghana has highest potable water access in West Africa - Mahama

Ghana now has the highest percentage of access to potable water in West Africa as a result of the investments made so far in both rural and water expansion projects, President John Dramani Mahama has said.

Mr. Mahama, who was addressing a durbar of chiefs and people of the Builsa Traditional Area as part of his Accounting to the People tour of the Upper East Region on Tuesday July 12, said: “Our government is a government in a hurry.

Over the last three and a half years, we have worked assiduously to provide the people of Ghana with the things that they deserve in order to make life better, to create a decent and dignified existence. In Accra for instance, the whole of the northern part of Accra never used to get water. It was typical to see people holding yellow jerry cans which were eventually nicknamed Kufuor gallons.

“Today, you go to Accra, you can’t find those yellow jerry cans. At least for fetching water, they are not being used. Because with the expansion of the Kpong Water Project we did, 40 million gallons more of water is being pumped to Accra. And so Adenta and East Legon and all those places that were water-starved today have access to water,” the president said.

He added: “Today, as I speak, access to clean drinking water in Ghana, both urban and rural, has risen from 58% in 2008 to 76%. And so, 76 percent of our people have access to clean, drinking water and this is the highest in West Africa.

“And I have said by the year 2020, we should achieve universal access to clean, drinking water. So, we are going to continue to do water expansion projects. We’ve done hundreds of small town water projects. We’ve done hundreds of boreholes. We’ve expanded urban water.”