Regional Report: Onsonyameye residents in Ellembelle district cry for potable water

Correspondence from Western Region:

Residents of Onsonyameye, a farming community in the Ellembelle District of the Western Region have expressed their dissatisfaction about the state of drinking water in the area.

According to the residents, the community lacks potable water and that has become a huge challenge.

The Onsonyameye community is within the Atababo Electoral Area on the Nyamebekyere-Aiyinasi North enclave.

However, the community has not benefited from any potable water project since its inception.

In a visit to the community by GhanaWeb's Western Regional Correspondent Daniel Kaku, it was revealed that the residents depend largely on a stream as their only source of water.

The situation becomes worse whenever the stream dries up in the dry season. Since the stream is not clean, it is only used for home chores.

However, residents in the farming community, especially women and school children have to walk more than three miles to a forest reserve before they can get access to a River which is believed to be clean for drinking.

GhanaWeb also observed that some community members have constructed wells whilst others depend on sachet water for survival.

Speaking to GhanaWeb TV, they said: "We lack potable water and our source of water is muddy resulting in an infestation of all kinds of water-borne diseases. We are suffering immensely that is why we are crying for help".

"Just recently some of the members of this community got ill and they were sent to hospital and the doctors attributed their ailment to the source of drinking water. Because the stream flows under a cocoa farm, the insecticides used in spraying the cocoa leak into it and that is affecting our health".

"We have been advised to desist from fetching the stream to drink but that is not possible because we don't have any other source of drinking water that is clean in this community", they added.

According to the men, the situation is affecting their marriages. "This is because we always walk for a long distance to fetch water for our wives to cook. We get tired and sometimes abandon our farms and it is affecting us seriously".

They are, therefore using the opportunity to appeal to the Government of Ghana, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and other individuals to come to their aid by constructing pipe-borne water for them.

"We are appealing to government, NGOs, and anybody who can help us to come to our aid. We the people of Onsonyameye in the Ellembelle District are suffering", they pleaded.