Water Crisis Hit Bolgatanga

By Samuel Akapule

Bolgatanga — POWER outages and obsolete water pumping equipment has led to the rationing of water in the Bolgatanga Municipality and Bolgatanga East District of the Upper East Region.

As a result, residents of the affected areas have resorted to streams and dugouts for their source of water.

Commenting on the situation, the Upper East Regional Manager of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Mr Kenneth Anim, attributed the rationing of water in the Bolgatanga Municipality and the Bolgatanga East District and their environs to the frequent power outages and obsolete pumping equipment at the Water Treatment Plant at Vea.

"What we are doing in the interim is to be rationing the water. In other words, we have zoned the Bolgatanga Municipality into sections. In this respect, on Monday, we supply one area and another day, we move to another area. Thus, we don't have full water supply situation to all sections of the community at the same time.

"The production capacity is now below the demand, so, we have to ration such that everybody can get an average quantity for the household," Mr Anim told the Ghanaian Times here on Saturday.

Meanwhile, residents in the Bolgatanga Municipality and the Bolgatanga East District are complaining bitterly about the rationing of water by the GWCL without adequately informing them on how the rationing was being done.

"The decision by the GWCL to ration water to us as customers without first informing us, has affected us a lot as we have to go through with this erratic supply of water for the past two weeks."

A good number of the residents have resorted to drawing water from open wells and streams for domestic and commercial use.

A resident at Bolgatanga Estate, Ms Magarate Ania, who spoke to the Ghanaian Times, indicated that the water situation has been very disturbing, stressing that "water is life and water is everything."

Another resident at Tanzui, Ms Philomina Awuni, indicated they are compelled to buy a lot of "sachet pure water" for the family, particularly the school children, and appealed to the authority concerned to step in immediately to resolve the problem.

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