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The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah has disclosed in a “Meet the Press” series on Tuesday April 23, 2019 that, the Ministry has made significant strides in increasing access to improved sanitation and water supply to low income beneficiaries in Greater Accra under the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA-SWP).

“As at April 2017, when the newly created Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources took over the management of the Project, the status of the project mainly stood at 1,080 household toilets completed as against target of 19,100. Today, the GAMA Project has chalked significant successes, increasing the number of household toilets provided to 19,917 benefiting 159,336 low income target population. The project has thus exceeded the target population by 44,336 representing 8,800 households, thirteen clear months before the end of its duration in May 2020”, she said.

According to the Minister, a total of 406 School Sanitation facilities, including girls changing rooms were targeted under the project out of which 251 have been completed and handed over to the beneficiary schools as of today.

She added that the remaining 155 facilities are on average at 92% completion; reiterating that the 406 facilities are expected to serve a total of 163,000 school pupils.

The minister pontificated that, “another significant achievement under the GAMA Project is the improvement in drainage at the Mallam Junction thus significantly reducing the perennial flooding which had bedeviled the area since time immemorial. The project intervention involved the construction of box culvert across the Kaneshie-Kasoa section of the road”.

She stressed that 70 percent completion of a similar intervention is also ongoing at the Kaneshie First-Light, which is expected to reduce the incidence of flooding in the area.

Hon. Dapaah added that, the cumulative impact of these approaches and interventions has manifested in the most recently released Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report of 2017/2018 by the Ghana Statistical Service.

“In this report, access to improved sanitation has increased from 15% to 21% nationally” she disclosed.