Busua (W/R), Aug 05, GNA - Dr Charles Augustus Biney, the Executive Secretary of the Water Resources Commission (WRC), has said it was time society disregarded the notion that water has unlimited quantity and therefore must be for free.

He said there was the need for a radical change in the attitude of the people towards the use of the commodity that is important to the development of all sectors of the economy.

Dr Biney was speaking at the opening of a day's workshop on Water Rights Permitting and Registration at Busua near Takoradi on Thursday. About 40 members of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency of the 13 district assemblies in the Western Region and other stakeholders attended the workshop that the Commission organised. Dr Biney urged the participants to help to dispel the "myth of abundance" that leads to complacency and waste and instead encourage the maximization of the uses of water resources for the benefit of all. The WRC Executive Secretary also advised the people to adopt habits that would enhance the efforts to protect the environment from destruction.

He said only about half of the country's population has access to good drinking water, while statistics indicate that about 4,000 people had to be provided with water every year.

He said the Community Water and Sanitation Agencies of the various district assemblies have major roles to play to meet the target of the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy as contained in the Millennium Development Goals.

Under this, the government is expected to provide at least half of those without good drinking water with potable water by 2015 and sanitation by 2020. Mrs Adwoa Dako of the WRC said the government would soon come out with a water policy and this would help to protect water bodies and the environment from destruction. Some of the participants blamed the mining companies and construction firms for the pollution and destruction of water bodies in the region.