Adaklu-Tsrefe, (V/R), Feb. 22, GNA - A 3-billion cedi water supply project was launched by the Chiefs and people of the Adaklu Traditional Area at a fund-raising durbar at Adaklu-Tsrefe on Saturday. The Adaklu Area Council initiated the project, which was expected to extend pipe-borne water from Ho to ten communities in the area. Each resident and non-resident citizen of beneficiary communities would pay 20,000 cedis and 50,000 cedis respectively towards ten per cent cost of the project and the people would provide communal labour while the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) of the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) would bear the rest of the cost.

Togbega Gbogbi Atsa V, Paramount Chief of the Area, expressed the hope that extension of potable water to the area would help improve health, agriculture and tourism in the area.

He commended the Area Council for initiating the project to solve once an for all the age-old water problem facing the people. "I wish to request all chiefs, elders, opinion Leaders and unit committee members to consider this project as the life-wire of development in the Adaklu area and they should co-operate with all development partners in this direction", Togbega Gbogbi said. He urged his people to "embrace the positive initiatives of the government" and warned the youth "not to give in to pressures from over-ambitious and self-seeking politicians, who might desire to use them to create confusion during the 2004 polls".

He urged eligible persons to register as soon as the voters' register was opened in March this year.

Mr Maxwell Gbakah, Chairman of the Adaklu-Area Council, told journalists that though projects were initiated to get underground water for the people since the first republic, at every attempts, the water was found to be alkaline and therefore unsuitable for consumption. He said the people relied on ponds and streams for water, which dry up during the dry season.

Mr Gbakah appealed to all citizen of the area to pay their levies to enable the Council mobilise 150 million cedis for the project. Over 15 million cedis was realised at the launch.