An acute water shortage in the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipality and surrounding communities has forced some of the residents to resort to fetching water from the banks of the Densu River for domestic use.
Women and children compete with trucks which are loaded with yellow gallons fetching the water for use or to sell.
The women and children also visit the banks to wash while cattle and sheep line up to drink from the same water source.
The water shortage that has hit the area has been attributed to the lack of water at the treatment plant to serve the communities with potable water.
The desiccation of the treatment plant, which is due to dryness in the River Densu, the main source of water for the Nsawam water plant, has been attributed to the harmattan and other human activities such as illegal mining and farming.
The situation has forced some residents to buy a gallon of water at GH¢3 from water tankers, while others have also resorted to the use of water at outlets of the Densu River.
Residents’ plight
When the Daily Graphic visited the banks of the river, some women and children were seen washing and fetching water from the polluted waterbody, while the yellow gallons loaded in trucks were either unloading to fetch the water or repacking the gallons into the truck or taxi after fetching.
Cattle and sheep were also seen drinking from another side of the river which was being used by the residents.
"We do not have any choice but to use this water. We boil it and add alum to make it clean for us to use to cook and even drink," Ms Fati Idris, who was spotted washing at the bank, said.
Hospital not affected
A tour of the water treatment plant reservoir indicated that the water level was very low while officials at the site said they could not pump water to the residents due to the low water level.
The Managing Director of the Ghana Water Company Limited, Mr Frederick Christian Lokko, who had also visited the site, declined to make any comment after the Daily Graphic team approached him. He said: "We didn't invite you here....."
Later at the Nsawam Municipal Hospital, a medical officer, Dr Letsa R. Mawuli, told the Daily Graphic that the hospital had not yet been hit by the shortage due to the borehole on its premises.
However, he said if the situation persisted for a long time, it would be difficult for them. On the issue of cholera and diarrhoea cases as a result of the water, he said although the hospital was recording some level of cases, it could not attribute it to the water from the river.
MCE
The Municipal Chief Executive for Nsawam, Mr Ben Ohene Aryeh, who described the situation as ‘dire’, said the assembly had put in place some interventions to support the residents.
He, however, said the two senior high schools within the municipality, Nsawam Senior High School and the St Martin Senior High, were their priority.
The assembly, he said, also supplied water to the various suburbs in the municipality from time to time. He added that the resources of the assembly were not enough to provide water daily to all the residents.
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