Hon. Dari Andrew Chiwitey, Member of Parliament for the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba constituency in the Savannah Region, has called for a collaborative intervention to protect and conserve the country’s water bodies.
He said there is the need for a policy response to safeguard the water bodies, urging all and sundry to support the enforcement of existing laws and other appropriate regulatory and management actions on water preservation.
The MP made the call during a Parliamentary debate on the 2021 budget allocation for the sanitation and water ministry which is an oversight responsibility by the Works and Housing Committee of the Parliament of Ghana.
The deputy ranking member of the Works and Housing Committee made the clarion call based on the committee report it presented to Parliament.
He said the Government should make strides in the provision of basic drinking water services to the citizenry, stressing that the population with access to improved water is far below the target SDG goal 6.
He said the government should aimed at investing in building climate-resilient water infrastructure systems to reduce wastage in freshwater use; shift towards environmentally sustainable policies that take account of interconnection among ecological systems.
He noted that water was under extreme threat from a growing population , adding that there was the need to value water to avoid mismanaging the finite and irreplaceable resource.
Touching on the sanitation levy which is a new tax imposed on Ghanaians with the hope of improving upon sanitation in the country, the MP said such tax will not benefit his constituents making reference to government’s free water during the hard times of covid-19 which he said not even a single constituent from his constituency benefited from such policy.
The MP therefore urged the government to to as matter of urgency extend water to the rural communities in the country and avoid the over concentration in the urban areas.
He added that, the Ministry of Sanitation should make it a point to track all boreholes constructed in the country,with this way we can determine which areas are really in need of water supply and also avoid the duplication of records.
Source: yagbonradioonline
