By Justice Lee Adoboe

The 3rd Ghana Water Forum opened on Monday in Accra with President John Evans Atta Mills declaring that his government would spare no effort in ensuring that the country attained 85 percent water coverage instead of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target of 76 percent by 2015.

He argued that though the 76 percent water and 53 percent sanitation coverage demanded by the MDGs by 2015 were laudable, “what kind of water would the rest who would not be part of the 76 percent be using , and what kind of toilet facilities would those not part of the 53 percent be using,?”

“We as a government are intent on doing what is best for the people of this country,” the president promised in a speech read on his behalf at the opening of the forum.

He lamented that urban water supply had stagnated against the quantum leap made in small town and rural water coverage since 1994.

Indeed many urban dwellers less than twenty years of age have never seen water flowing daily out of their taps, lamented the president, adding that the sanitation situation in urban Ghana was even worse.

“Good environmental sanitation has a huge impact on the health status of the good people of this country, because it reduces diarrhoeal diseases including cholera, worm infestations and various kinds of flu,” Mills stated.

He announced that there was a one hundred million World Bank supported urban water expansion project going on while the People’s Republic of China was also supporting the construction of an additional water treatment plant at Kpong to increase the water supply to Accra by forty million gallons per day.

President Mills urged Metropolitan Municipal and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs) to implement the relevant by-laws to ensure that all households had access to appropriate sanitation facilities in their houses.

He expressed appreciation to the country’s development partners for their roles and contribution in helping to provide potable water to the good people of the country. Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin said Ghana was in the period of rapid urbanization, with more than 52 percent of the population living in urban areas with almost half of that figure living in Accra and Kuamasi.

At this rate of urbanization: “urban water delivery is only playing catch up. From the 81 urban water systems operating the average daily output is only about half of the entire daily demand.”

He said challenges such as poor water quality, as a result if negative agricultural practices, unplanned housing, commercial, industrial and mining activities had resulted in high treatment costs for the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL). “There is an urgent need for further improvements in the management and maintenance of urban water and sanitation systems; and the need for government to continue to explore venues to greatly improve sanitation and potable water supply, not only for urban dwellers but also for the rural poor, Bagbin remarked.

Professor Kwamena Ahwoi, senior lecturer at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, called for a “Water Fund” to serve as a safety net to cater for the marginalised and disadvantaged in the society who could not afford to pay for water.

“My preference is for a Water Fund along the lines of the Ghana Education Trust Fund and the Road Fund,” he said.

Prof Ahwoi said Ghana’s rapidly changing urban population meant that the country could not continue to use systems that were designed to provide water and sanitation services to an urban population that was half the number of the current population at the time they were designed.

The forum which ends on Wednesday is under the topic, "Water and Sanitation services Delivery in a Rapidly Changing Urban Environment".