The Ghana Water Company says it has deployed water tankers to ameliorate the plight of residents of Yendi municipality following a water shortage that hit the area.
The shortage is due to the drying up of the municipality’s main source of water, River Dakar.
The Northern Regional Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Water Company Limited, Nicholas Nii Abbey, blamed the situation on human activities such as farming along the river and the delay in perennial rains.
“It’s been a perennial challenge that GWCL has been battling with and as a result, we are looking forward to a long-term solution in addressing this problem. This time around, what we’re doing is to take the water from the River Oti which is to give us about some 15,000 cubic metres of water. That will be able to meet the demand in Yendi, as far as we’re concerned. River Dakar, like we all know, has dried up but in the interim, what we have done as management is that we’ve put in place some mitigating structures. What we’ve done is that we’ve contracted some private water tankers. Currently, there are some boreholes we have in Yendi. We’re treating this borehole and the water tankers are serving the township. Now, there is a water tanker also dedicated solely to institutions and other key places.”
Nii Abbey stated that GWCL has mandated its technical team to desilt the river of mud.
“On the aspect of the river, we currently have a team of some technical experts who are trying to remove some of the smudges in the water. Clearly, it’s as a result of human activity that is causing the drying up of the river each year.”
He said the Ghana Water Company is constructing phase two of the treatment plant to solve this matter in the long term following President Akufo-Addo’s cutting of sod last year.
“As far as the project is concerned, we are done with phase one of the project. We are yet to move on to phase two which is the physical construction on the ground. We are hoping that come second-quarter, physical construction should commence. And so that is the phase as far as the project is concerned. We are done with all the designs. We are looking forward to this second quota of the year.”
