More overhead tanks, boreholes to augment water supply in Oguaa schools

Cape Coast, April 30, GNA - Senior secondary schools (SSS) in the Cape Coast municipality, are to be provided with more overhead tanks, boreholes and rain harvesting facilities, among others, under a 20 billion cedis contract awarded by the government to improve their water supply system.

The Central Regional Minister, Mr Isaac Edumadze, disclosed this to the GNA at Cape Coast, on Friday to throw more light on the project, which has already been awarded to three contractors and is scheduled to take off soon.

The Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr Osei Akoto announced the package at a forum on the 2004 budget at Cape Coast on February 10. According to Mr Edumadze, GEOFRA, a British/Ghanaian firm, and one of the three contractors engaged for various aspects of the project, has imported overhead tanks from Britain which are due to arrive soon.

It would be recalled that SSS in the municipality have had their re-opening dates postponed in view of the current water shortage in the municipality due to the reduction of the water level in the Brimsu Dam, from which water is supplied to Cape Coast and its environs.

At present, only students in form three were allowed to report to school on the initial re-opening dates.

According to the Regional Director of the Ghana Water Company (GWC), Mr Godwin Dovlo, the water in the reservoir, whose maximum operating capacity is 24 feet, has been falling gradually at about three inches a day.

He told the GNA on Wednesday that the 10 tankers so far secured by the company to augment water supply in the municipality, could not adequately "feed" the teeming student population and that, their schools can only reopen, when " it rains and continues to rain".