A total of €153,899,787.13 loan facility has been approved by Parliament to finance the Sunyani water supply expansion project (Phase 1).
The amount is made up of €138,221,015.63 EKN-backed facility and €15,678,771.50 facility to be provided by the Standard Chartered Bank.
The two agreements were presented to the House on Friday, August 14, 2020 by the Minister for Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei, on behalf of the Minister of Finance.
The government said the existing Sunyani water supply system supplies water to the city of Sunyani, the administrative capital of the Bono Region, and 16 other surrounding towns and villages.
The Chairman of the Finance Committee, Dr. Mark Assibey-Yeboah, disclosed that the system was built in the 1960s and some sections were upgraded in the 1990s.
According to him, the existing water supply system is on surface water from the Tano River, adding that until recently, the Sunyani distribution system served an estimated population of 167,000 people through approximately 4,600 service connections and over 130 standpipes.
Reading the committee’s report, he stated that the Sunyani municipality had witnessed one of the most dramatic population growth rates in the country, increasing from about 101,141 inhabitants in the year 2000 to 184,692 in 2010.
He noted that the trend is likely to prevail in the ensuing years as the town continues to discover greater potential for socio-economic growth.
“The rapid rate of socio-economic transformation in Sunyani and its surrounding communities has, however, not been matched by the delivery of water, thereby threatening the health and sustainable growth of the supply area,” he stated.
Dr. Assibey-Yeboah said it was against the backdrop of the continued growth of Sunyani and the surrounding communities that had called for the immediate expansion of the existing water supply system in order to keep with the country’s drive towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal No. 6 of providing water for all.
He intimated that the government was procuring the loans to finance the project and that the Standard Chartered Bank had agreed to grant the needed financing for the project.
He disclosed that the scope of works to be undertaken under phases I and II would include but not limited to the construction of a dam on the Tano River, construction of a new intake facility of capacity 57,750m3/ day (12.8MGD) and construction of a new 55,000m3/day (12.2MGD) conventional water treatment plant complete with all ancillary structures.
Others are the construction of new grand level reservoirs and elevated water tanks with a total capacity of about 16,250m3, construction of two booster stations, laying pipelines of various diameters to convey potable water to the beneficiary communities totalling 93km, laying of distribution network within the beneficiary communities totalling 220km, and the supply of 10,000 smart domestic meters and provision of 196 standpipes.
By Ernest Kofi Adu, Parliament House