Water Shortage Hits Accra

The city of Accra is engulfed in a deep water crisis, which has virtually brought a number of commercial activities to a halt. It has also affected productivity as most workers could not get to their work-place on time.

School children are on 'water-imposed holidays, as they go 'scanning' the city for water from place to place, sometimes walking over three kilometers in search of water. The trauma which goes with this is better felt than mentioned.

The situation is so alarming that one sees men, women and children, parading the streets of Kotobabi, Mamobi and parts of Nima, communities, hardest hit, as early as 3 am, loaded with plastic containers looking for water. And some of them, after fruitless searches returned home dejected.

A number of them walked as far as Kwame Nkrumah circle, and even, Adabraka before getting a gallon of water which ranges between ¢1000 to ¢2,000. There is no water at all, not even a droplet in those places mentioned. Even Alajo and Kotobabi Down known never to have experience such an acute crisis, is also now a 'victim.'

In a telephone interview with Mr Martin Adombiri, Ghana Water Company Area manager in-charge of Accra East, he indicated, the population of Accra has increased to such an extent that the quantity of water pumped daily into the company's overhead tanks could not feed all the communities at the same time, so the company has resorted to rationing the supply on weekly basis.

He explained, the problem normally arises when a community misses its turn of the supply, either through the inability of the company to 'send' water there or the residents ignorance of the ration-date or time. “And if that happened, then it meant they have to wait till another week before accessing water,” he stressed.