Ghana and Togo are in consultation to transfer water from the Volta River at Sogakope to Lome, Togo.

The move, says Deputy Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Cecilia Dapaah, is in line with an institutional arrangement aimed at ensuring co-operation in the use of shared water resources of the Volta Basin for the equitable benefit of all countries concerned.

Mrs Dapaah was speaking at the opening of a workshop on the development of Inter Basin Water Transfer (IBWT) in Accra.

The five-day workshop on the theme: ‘‘Developing guidelines for inter-Basic water transfer’’ for policy makers in Africa, was jointly organized by the United Nations Water Africa and the Water Resources Commission.

It is designed to consolidate the principle of equitable sharing of benefits in IBWT among originating and recipient countries as well as develop policy guidelines to formulate political, economic, social and environmental perspectives of IBWT.

Mrs Dapaah explained that the estimated benefits of such inter-basin water scheme in terms of water supply, flood control and industrial development were too significant to be ignored.

‘‘The longer inter-basic transfers are delayed, the more costly and difficult will proposals become to implement.’’

She stressed the need to address the concerns of such water transfers in order to guide policy and decision makers, particularly in Africa.

‘‘For instance, there is a lingering perception that water could be siphoned from less endowed basins to support continued growth in recipient basins, resulting in harm to the water resources, the economy, the environment and the people of the source basins,’’ she said.

The Deputy Minister expressed the government’s commitment to implementing a water policy to provide a solid justification for water management and development decisions.

That, she said, would stimulate and sustain growth in the country’s economic development and social well-being.

Sani Adamu, chairman of steering committee of the workshop and Executive Secretary of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, noted that lack of access to safe drinking water affected the development of water-borne diseases in communities

He therefore called for investment into the development of water in Africa in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals target of ensuring 75 per cent access to potable water by 2015.