Private Sector Participation in Water By March 2002

Mr Kwamena Bartels, Minister of Works and Housing has said that the government has initiated policies and programmes for private sector participation in the urban water sector by March 2002.

Addressing the Mole 12 conference on the community water and sanitation sector at Sogakope, he said two private companies would operate the current system being run by the Ghana Water Company Limited on leasing terms.

The Mole Conference aims at assessing the performance of the community water and sanitation programme as well as generating debate, sharing of experiences and drawing lessons from the sector. The four-day conference is on the theme: "Looking back at the community water and sanitation programme, the NGO factor"

The Minister said the country has been divided into two business units with Greater Accra, Volta, Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions forming one unit while Brong Ahafo, Ashanti, Eastern, Central and Western Regions form the second unit to enhance the private participation in scheme.

He said with such abundant rainfall and the ever-increasing demand for potable water, the nation needs to take advantage and introduce affordable technologies to make use of this natural resource.

Mr Bartels said this at the opening of a four-day Mole XII conference on Community Water and Sanitation Programme (CWSP) organised by the Professional Network, an NGO engaged in the water and sanitation sector, at Sogakope in the Volta Region.The Mole XII conference seeks to review the performance of the CWSP in terms of NGOs participation, contribution and other related targets and offer stakeholders the opportunity to go beyond review of past achievements to delivery

Mr Bartels said the rate of water and sanitation facilities delivery is below the national demand, noting that conservative statistics show that urban and rural water coverage is about 76 and 47 per cent respectively while sanitation is eleven per cent in rural areas.

The Minister deplored the attitude of some NGOs who fail to comply with national policies aimed at ensuring sustainability of the systems.

He said some NGOs continue to use the supply driven approach of providing facilities to communities, who do not contribute anything towards the capital cost of the facilities. "This tends to have adverse effect on the activities of community water and sanitation agency, especially in districts where NGOs have provided or are providing free facilities."

He said the NGOs are also guilty of inadequate preparation of the communities on the operations and maintenance of the facilities, which has a long-term adverse effect on its sustainability Mr Bartels said other NGOs also provide communities with water systems with hand pumps, which do not conform to the standardised hand pump creating maintenance problem for lack of spare parts.

He said it is essential that necessary steps are taken to ensure that NGOs operating in the water and sanitation sector comply with the provisions of the national community water and sanitation programme.

He said the ministry has adopted a system of standardisation in the sector to ensure sanity in operations and have selected four pumps to be allowed into the country.

The pumps are Nira, Afridev, Verg net and Ghana modified Indian Mark II.Mr Bartels said the post delivery role of the communities and the NGOs in terms of operations and maintenance is very critical to the ministry and urged the NGOs to include in their programmes community participation through funding and other forms of involvement.

Mr Gordon Mumbo, Water Aid-Ghana Country Representative said the global industrial output has increased with the world's population growing to six billion people, creating environmental consequences.

He said the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere has also increased by more than one-third since the industrial revolution and the annual carbon dioxide emission exceeds the earth's absorptive capacity by 3.1 billion tones.