Stakeholders Discuss Plans To Develop Water Regulations In The Volta Basin

A two day national consultative review workshop on a diagnostic report for development of the Water Charter for Water Governance and Sustainable Trans-boundary Water Resource Management within the White Volta Basin is underway in Bolgatanga in the Upper East Region.

Participants are expected to review a draft report on the technical, legal and institutional diagnostics study conducted by BRLi consultants, a French consulting firm supported by the World Bank.

The stakeholders will jointly identify priority problems and also come out with commitments in an effort to develop measures for the Volta Basin Water Charter.

Mr Robert Dessouassi Yaovi, Executive Director of the Volta Basin Authority, who outlined the background to the project in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the project was part of a 10- year strategic plan spanning from 2015 to 2024.

He said out of the ten years, a five-year priority plan, implemented through the Volta Basin strategic Action Program Implementation Project (VSIP) from 2015 to 2019 as a first component of the project will help develop the water charter for the basin.

Mr Yaovi said the laws, when developed, would govern the management of the basin and serve as a as reference to the six partner countries including Ghana, Mali, Benin, Togo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Burkina Faso that share the Volta basin.

The Executive Director said water from the Volta River was jointly used by the partner countries and it is necessary to regulate its use adding that the laws would help to avoid future conflicts within the basin.

He said that there could be no cooperation without legal basis and added that for the implementation of projects within the priority actions to be successful, partner states have to come together with processes for drafting the water charter.

Mr Yaovi said the Council of Ministers were expected to adopt the draft, while a summit of head of states and the heads of the six countries and their Parliaments would sign the pact to ratify the document with copies submitted to the African Union and the United Nations.

He congratulated Ghana for her great performance for establishing the Akosombo and Bui dams to produce electricity adding that power from the grid is shared by some of the partners.

Mr Donnan Tay, an official from the National Water Directorate, said the Akufo-Addo government was committed to water and sanitation challenges in the country.

He pledged continuous coordination and monitoring to ensure that institutions responsible for implementation of activities in the basin played their mandated roles.

The Volta River Basin Authority was established in 2007 charged to promote cooperation among parties in the development of the basin, promote implementation of integrated water resource management and the equitable distribution of benefits resulting from the various activities.

GNA
By Fati Anafu Astanga, GNA