Parliamentary Works and Housing Committee tours B/A

Berekum (B/A), July 30, GNA- Some small towns in the Berekum District in Brong Ahafo cannot benefit from the Small Town Pipe System Project (STPSP) in the area because of a policy by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) not to operate in communities serviced by Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL).

Mr. George Osei Poku, Coordinator for Berekum District Water and Sanitation Team (DWST), said the Agency's current policy direction of not operating in communities being serviced by GWCL had prevented some communities from enjoying potable water.

"Those communities are not enjoying good drinking water because they fall under the operational mandate of the GWCL, which has not been able to service them because of some factors", he said.

The Coordinator was speaking at a meeting between the DWST and the Parliamentary Sub-Committee on Works and Housing at Berekum in Brong-Ahafo.

The Committee was on a fact-finding tour of the district as part of a two-day visit to review the water situation in some areas in Brong-Ahafo.

Mr Poku called for relaxation of the CWSA policy to enable such communities to benefit from the agency's programmes.

Mr Poku said inadequate facilities, frequent breakdown of the facilities and lack of geological formations were impeding the provision of potable water in the district.

He cited Kato, Senase and Biadan as some of the towns under GWCL and pleaded that they be handed over to the District Assembly to enable them to benefit from the CWSA programme.

Mr Poku said the Water and Sanitation Team on behalf of the Assembly was currently providing 38 mechanised boreholes at various locations in the district at a cost of 2.3 billion cedis. The Committee later visited one of the drilling sites at Akrofro, 4.65 kilometres north of Berekum where four of the facilities were being drilled by China Henanu Geo Construction Limited, a Chinese drilling company based in Tamale.

Mr. Fu Xin Zhong, the Project Manager of the Company, told newsmen that the company had drilled 27 out of the 38 boreholes within two months, with 22 of them in operation but five were dry. The Committee, led by its chairman, Mr Sampson Otu Darko, MP for Ga North, paid a courtesy call on the chief, Nana Kwasi Gyau Gyan II at his palace and discussed with him issues concerning the development of the town.