German lady lands President Kufuor in water!

Accra (The Statesman) -- The government’s private sector participation policy to tackle the acute problems associated with the provision of water, which the public sector has failed to improve over the years, has landed President J.A. Kufuor into the hands of an irate German lady.

This is as a result of the lady’s continuous campaign on the internet, painting the government’s water strategic approach as a deliberate policy to exploit the poor in Ghana. President Kufuor disclosed this in his opening address during the ongoing three-day Accra Water Conference on “Water Conference on “Water Sustainable Development in Africa: Regional Stakeholders’ Conference for Priority Setting” in Accra on Monday.

According to the President, he receives an average of 10 faxes a day from the lady who has “launched a worldwide e-mail campaign in the misplaced belief that government wants to exploit the poor or something worse in its water policy.” The lady, the President noted, has been mounting pressure on the government not to invite private sector participation in the provision of water services as well as not to build the Bui Dam, planned to provide energy source and water supply for irrigation and drinking for people in the Brong Ahafo Region.

President Kufuor emphasized that such misplaced campaign is going on because certain vocal and rather utopian elements within society seem to lack the basic truth that “it is not possible to acquire the know-how and technology to develop our water resources without cost.” He said the effect of lack of such fact is that such elements confuse the search for effective means to provide vital water service with the unconscionable profit motive.

The President, therefore, urged the participants to deliberate with the necessary realism to find how to make access to safe and sufficient water for all in sustained manner and at affordable cost.