Joseph Kofi Adda with the team from IRC, Ghana and Safe Water Network, after the showcase of district-based approach to meeting the SDG 6
The Minister of Water Resources & Sanitation, Joseph Kofi Adda, has disclosed plans for more resource allocation by government to address water and sanitation issues in the country.
The sector minister, touting the progress made in the sanitation and water sector, which now has a dedicated ministry, said he will be pushing for an increase in budgetary allocation from the current 1.5 percent of the GDP to about three percent in next year’s budget.
“The funds that we have now at the equivalent of 1.5 percent of GDP, we are getting that from a situation of uncertainty, but we are taking the necessary steps to becoming a dedicated ministry to work on increasing those funds in terms of the percentage of GDP,” he said.
Mr Adda made this assertion during a showcase of Ghana’s district-based approach to meeting SDG 6 at the ongoing World Water Week Conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
He said Ghana’s President, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, considers the ministry as a key catalyst in achieving one of his flagship programmes, “we now want to double the resources to about three per cent of the allocation, but all that will come from the strategic plan that we hope to put together.”
Total Strategic Strategy
Mr Adda stated that the ministry was working fervently on getting all the other ministries interested and involved in water and sanitation issues through its marketing tool of total sanitation strategy initiative.
The initiative which will be launched in Ghana a few weeks to come will work to get all the other ministries involved in improving water and sanitation through their activities.
“It is to get all the sectors to come together to support the water and sanitation sector and play a part of it. There will be a sort of healthy competition among the ministers that would foster advocacy for allocation of more resources and support to the sector,” he stated.
Mr Adda explained that the ministry was also creating a comprehensive strategic plan for the whole sector to realign the approach in meeting the national target of basic sanitation in the next five years.
Future Projections
Touching on what stakeholders should expert from the ministry, Mr Adda said ending open defecation and providing access to safe drinking water was among the priorities of the ministry.
We want to get rid of open defecation entirely, we have targeted one million toilets in the next couple of years,” he said.
He added that between now and the end of the year, the ministry has projected the construction of about 20,000 toilets country wide.
“KVIP will be left to the private sector operators to deal with in the markets and communal places. We will support institutional toilets and then household toilets. So in the next three to five years we hope we can eliminate open defecation,” he opined.
Mr Adda acknowledged the steady progress in getting safe drinking water to citizens which stands at a little over 50 percent of the population.
He, however, enumerated that the ministry has targeted a number of initiatives to widen the access to safe drinking water, especially in hard-to-reach areas where people depend on surface or unimproved source of water.
“We have targeted a number of boreholes to dig, currently we have 25,000 boreholes, 300 small town mechanised systems that we are going to construct with funding from World Bank and Africa Development Bank,” he added.
Mr Adda called on all stakeholders, especially the private sector, to play active roles in getting the water and sanitation agenda of the government running to the benefit of all Ghanaians.
“The key words here are ‘let’s clean Ghana, play your part,” he highlighted.
From Jamila Akweley Okertchiri, Stockholm, Sweden