Wechiau, April 6, GNA - Mr. Worlanyo Siabe, the Upper West Regional Director of Community Water and Sanitation Agency, has appealed to the six beneficiary districts of the Sustainable Rural Water and Sanitation Project to pay their share of the five per cent component of the fund. The Project is to provide 300 boreholes for the districts and the World Bank is financing it with 75 million dollars. The districts are Wa Municipal, Nadowli, Wa West, Wa East, Sissala East and Lambussie/Karni.

He appealed to the districts to avoid selecting disputed lands for the project because this has the potential to delay the project. Mr. Siabe said this at the Wa West District launch of the project in Wechiau on Tuesday. He appealed to the implementers of the project to give priority to communities that have high incidence of water borne diseases. Mr. Seidu Tungbani, Wa West District Chief Executive, said he was happy that the project would provide potable for people to help reduce the incidence of water borne diseases. The project would also help women to undertake more income generating ventures as they would now have more hours to work with.

Mr. Sampson Atakora, an Engineer at the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, said 55 new boreholes and one small town water system would be provided for the district under the five-year project. The government would also drill 32 more boreholes in 28 communities in the Wa West District under its Priority Rural Water Project while the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). These would supply eight rural communities and four schools with potable water and sanitation facilities under its Assisted WASH Programme.

Mr. Atakora said the district had 207 boreholes serving about 185 communities and has 73.64 per cent of rural water coverage as at the end of 2010 which is slightly lower than the 76 per cent Millennium Development Goals' target.

He expressed regret that water systems completed on previous projects had not been properly managed according to Community Water and Sanitation sector strategy. He said districts oversight responsibility over completed water systems was weak and water system management was often abused at the community level.

Membership of water boards in the communities were often politicized thereby dividing members of the communities who did not provide the required support for effective management of the systems.

Some community members also think that the provision of water should be free no matter the cost and they use poverty to justify their refusal to pay water bills. Mr. Atakora said some institutions such as the Police, Senior High Schools, Hospitals and some important individuals connected to piped water systems were also refusing to pay their water bills and called for a change in attitude otherwise the water systems would collapse soon.

He said sanitation in the Wa West District remained below 10 per cent and it was unlikely that the 54 per cent coverage target of the Millennium Development Goal would not be achieved by 2015. Mr Atakora said the project would integrate sanitation and hygiene promotion and expressed the hope that new interventions by non-governmental organisations, the United Nations Children's Fund, the World Bank and others would help provide opportunities for increasing the sanitation coverage in the Wa West District. Madam Margaret Dery, a Secretary at the Dorimon Area Council told the GNA that the project would help promote government business in the district as some government officials were refusing to stay in the district because of inadequate potable water.