Public advised to take Water and Environmental Issues Serious

Mr Ayidari-Naa Juati, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the White Volta Basin, has urged the public to refrain from activities that will compromise availability of water.

He said so many things posed a threat to the environment including the availability of water with its associate climate change variability that made it difficult to know when the rains would start or whether there would be floods.

“If you cut a tree, poison the rivers, sand win without following due process and regulations and degrade the environment, then you are causing changes to availability of water for the population,” Mr Juati said.

Mr Juati a former Director of the Ghana Meteorological Services and a current lecturer at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region during the White Volta Basin Board Meeting.

He said the Water Resources Commission (WRC) decentralized and worked within the basins and under the reviewed plans more sub-basins committees were formed, bringing onboard more stakeholders as part of processes to address the challenges facing the water resources within the local jurisdictions, in fulfillment of the Integrated Water Resources Management Plans (IWRMP).

He said a lot of interventions had been carried out and were still needed in the IWRM plans as processes to fight climate variability and build resilience in the basins and that required more action.

He thanked the Dutch Water Authorities who were partnering the WRC to build capacities of person in the White Volta Basin (WVB), to fulfill the IWRM plans and called on government to support the WRC with funds and personnel to man the basins.

The WRC was established by act of parliament, Act 522 of 1996 which gives the Commission the mandate over management of water resources in Ghana.

The White Volta Basin was inaugurated in 2018 with a specific role to implement IWRM, using institutionalized and local structures within the districts to manage the water resources.