The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, says it is the duty of Ghanaians to protect the country’s 53.2 cubic meters of water endowment for future use.
She said this after touring the Pra River and the Daboase Water treatment plant in the Western Region on Monday, April 19, 2021.
She was accompanied by the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Samuel Abu Jinapor and the Information Minister, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah.
The Minister cited the operations of illegal small-scale miners (galamsey) as a contributing factor to pollution of water resources in the country and called for stringent measures to be taken to put an end to it.
She bemoaned the amount of money the government keeps spending to treat polluted water.
“The government keeps investing in the treatment of water. And it has become too much. We need to support the government’s efforts. We need to be active citizens and not spectators.”
“As spectators, the onus also lies on us, to play a watchdog role. Let’s report those who engage in such illegal activities on our water bodies. This is the only way to support the government’s efforts.”
The Ministerial tour of the Pra River, which has been heavily polluted by galamsey activities, affecting the supply of treated water to Sekondi-Takoradi was a follow-up to the National Consultative Dialogue on Small Scale Mining held in Accra last week.
The Lands and Natural Resources Minister, Samuel Abu Jinapor, who was also on the tour called for civil support to the enforcement of mining laws.
“The government and I have a responsibility and I will not shirk that responsibility. But I know too well that a chainsaw operator cannot storm a forest of Savannah or the jurisdiction of Savannah and begin to harvest rosewood without the consent of the chief, just as it’s not possible for miners to engage in illegal small scale mining on our river bodies and the rest of the people and the chiefs will sit unconcerned. That will not happen. It is a national effort and a national responsibility and the President is very clear that the laws must be applied without fear or favour and I have gotten that instruction from the President in very emphatic and unequivocal terms. It doesn’t matter who is involved whether it’s an appointee of the government or a member of his party or leader of his party or whoever, the laws must be applied and applied strictly”, he said.
The Western Regional Area Manager of the Ghana Water Company, Francis Adjei Boateng said galamsey pollution of the Pra River has reduced the raw Water for treatment at the Daboase plant and also made it expensive.
“We are consistently getting lower than required raw water availability for treatment…In 2007, before the emergence of galamsey on the water bodies of the country, the turbidity of our raw water from the Pra was around 54mtu. The mtu is the unit for measuring and the colour was about 200HU. But in the last couple of years, our raw water, we’ve had to grapple with turbidity values of about 3,000 mcu. So that is how severe the effects of galamsey is on our operations here. In terms of colour, we are now doing 5000HU, compared to what used to exist which was 200. So that is how serious galamsey is affecting our operations. What that implies is that we will have to use more chemicals in treating the water for all of us. Another aspect of the effect of galamsey in our operations is siltation at the intake stations…and that is also leading to frequent maintenance and therefore higher additional cost as a result of higher sediments. So galamsey is really impacting negatively our operations“, he said.
The Western Regional Minister, Kwabena Okyere Darko Mensah said investigations have revealed that the citizens are aiding illegal activities of galamsey which has affected the regular supply of water to Sekondi-Takoradi and will soon mount operation on such activities.