Joseph Kofi Adda
The Minister for Water Resources and Sanitation, Joseph Kofi Adda has reiterated the commitment of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government to dealing decisively with illegal mining, popularly known as ‘galamsey,’ which has destroyed the country’s water bodies and limited access to good drinking water.
He said in order to achieve the United Nations (UN) target of ‘Water For All,’ there was the need for thorough and deep understanding of issues of climate change and how to adapt to various policy measures on attitudinal transformation for Ghana to assist the global effort in this regard.
The Minister made the pledge in a statement delivered in parliament yesterday to mark World Water Day.
Mr Adda said the drying up of our river bodies and waterways, coupled with upstream activities such as diversion of rivers for farming and depletion of acquafiers or underground water sources as reported by hydrologists have become nagging problems in sustainable provision of potable water.
“Mr Speaker, previous governments have made strides in these areas but much still needs to be undertaken. In the vision of His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he has found the need to set up a dedicated Ministry to deal with this matter in a focused manner,” the minister said.
He said in observing this year’s World Water Day, there was the need for attention to be refocused on wastewater as a resource that should be reused rather than discarded.
“In our cities, we can treat and reuse wastewater for green spaces. In business and industry, we can treat and recycle discharge for things like cooling systems and irrigation.”
The Minister noted that by exploiting this valuable resource- wastewater, the nation can make the water cycle work better for every living thing.
He said exploiting wastewater in agriculture and aquaculture protects workers, farmers and consumers, promotes food security, health and wellbeing of citizens, adding that this will help the country achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6 to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater and increase water recycling and safe reuse.
“Government is seeking to ensure that its citizens have the water they need to lead healthy, happy and productive lives,” he said, stressing that NPP government’s attention is on increasing investments in water and sanitation services to decrease the time spent on collecting water, tackling the country’s cities water infrastructure systems which waste more freshwater than they deliver, shifting towards environmentally sustainable policies that take account of interconnection among ecological systems.
By Thomas Fosu Jnr