Ghana's Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, which oversees the management of the country's water resources and the provision of safe drinking water has made lots of efforts over the years to strengthen water sector institutions to implement programmes for effective water supply delivery.

Delivering his speech at the 5th Rural Water Supply Network held in Accra yesterday, the Minister, Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, noted that access to rural water facilities has been a major challenge and concern to Government.

But according to him, Ghana has chosen to go beyond the target recommended by the Millennium Development Goals and is moving towards achieving 85 percent coverage by 2015 instead of the recommended target of 73 percent.

This, he said, will still leave about four million people without sustainable access to water supply.

But, the Chairman for the occasion, the Okyenhene Osagyefuo Amoatia Ofori Panin cautioned the experts against making this forum another empty talk shop.

He said, yes we can have seminars. Yes we can have discussions, "But we can preach the best sermon in deeds and not in words."

The Okyenhene said it was a global travesty when billions of dollars are spent in chasing Saddam Hussein out of town when innocent children need far less to have clean water to drink.

To a standing ovation, the Okyenhene blamed Africa’s poverty on colonial exploitation and also "colonialisation by our own African leaders after independence." He said progressively in the last two decades there has been a new wind of change blowing in Africa and the people and their leaders could do with all the support they can get. "Perhaps if our colonial masters knew then that fifty years down the line we will still be talking about clean water to children, they would have done things differently," he added charitably.

But before the Okyenhene’s speech, the Minister commended donor partners such as CIDA, DANIDA, the EU, UNICEF, WaterAid, and the World Bank for making meaningful contributions to ensure Ghana hosted the forum.

Over three hundred participants drawn from around the world are attending the forum.

Piers Cross, Chairman of the RWSN steering committee pointed out that the network focuses on the neglected topic of rural water supply which helps to promote innovation and supports improving access to safe sustainable services to rural communities.

The theme of the 5TH RWSN forum is "Scaling up Local Entrepreneurship in Rural Water to meet MDGs."

He underscored the importance of Africa hosting the forum, adding that it was meant to put the continent back on track to meet the MDGs.

Mr Piers hoped Government and its partners would take positive actions towards achieving the MDG targets.