Mr James Awula, the Assembly Member for the Bankpama Electoral Area in the Wa West District has said access to potable water at Bankpama had become a privilege other than a right.

That, he said, was because the only borehole in the community serving the people had broken down, forcing them to resort to rivers and streams for water for domestic use.

Mr Awula, who said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, noted that the situation was not peculiar to the Bankpama community, but also existent in other communities in the electoral area.

“If you look at water issues at Bankpama Electoral Area it is something that is a source of worry.

“Some of the communities in my electoral area do not even have borehole at all, those communities with boreholes had all the boreholes broken down. Bankpama here is an example”, he explained.

"If you look at the community, it is big and there is no borehole here, so during the rainy season we get water from the rain, but in the dry season, we suffer a lot. We walk to the Black Volta to fetch”, Madam Faustina Yipaala, a resident of the Bankpama community said.

She appealed to the government and benevolent nongovernmental organisations to come to their aid by providing the community with a source of potable water.

On health, the residents noted that pregnant women and children could only access quality health care services at Wechiau which was several kilometres away from the community.

They said that was a result of the lack of medicine at the facility in the community which compelled the health personnel to refer almost every case to Wechiau.