Water shortages at Sekondi/Takoradi metropolis?

E. Ablorh-Odjidja

May 24, 2012

It is disheartening to read that the Sekondi/Takoradi metropolitan area is experiencing water shortage and this has led to the rationing of water.

This must not happen in the months of the rainy season when, after all, Ghana is most likely awash in floods. 

With the overall amount of water resources available in Ghana, this country has no business rationing water at any time in any given year.

Sekondi/Takoradi may be out of water because we administer our water resources in the same lackadaisical manner, as we do most things:  Witness the many failures within our infra-structure systems and their development processes.

Water resource utilization is obviously a case in point.  Other countries, with scanty water resources do better and it will help to point out two; Morocco and Israel, nation states that, in all practical terms, sit in the middle of deserts.

Israel has a mixture of “conventional freshwater and brackish water …. About 1.1 billion cubic meters are from groundwater and springs, and 0.6 billion from surface water….(and) about 0.3 billion cubic meters of reclaimed water”  In all, it has some 2 billion cubic  meters” available for a population of some 6.5 million people, says Wikipedia.

Morocco “has about 22 billion cubic meter .. However, only up to 20 billion cubic meter per year can be economically captured” for usage by a population of some 32.5 million people.” Wikipedia.

Ghana is different in that the “total actual renewable water resources (mainly from the Volta and other smaller rivers) are estimated to be at 53.2 billion m³ per year” for consumption by a population of some 24.5 million.

All told, Ghana, comparatively four times the population size of Israel, has over 26 times the water resource available to Israel.

 Morocco, 1.33 the population size of Ghana, has less than 55%n of the water resources available to Ghana.

And we read no media complaints about water shortages in Morocco or Israel, as we yearly about Ghana.

Even, with the calculations so far showing tremendous advantages over Israel and Morocco in potential water supply sources, we have not yet added the heavy tropical rains that occur in Ghana during the rainy seasons of every year.

According to a World Bank report published in 2010, “The Average precipitation in depth” for Ghana, was 1187.00 mm per year.  Israel had 435 mm and Morocco, 346 mm.

Precipitation is defined as any kind of water that falls from clouds as a liquid or a solid.” 

A stranger has only to visit Ghana during one of these rainy seasons and will be surprised to see the amount of water that falls from the heavens during any of these periods. 

Sadly, a greater portion of this water goes unused, but settles as runoffs, flooding towns and villages to result in loss in property, destructions of human lives and livelihoods.

All this natural good water from the skies, enough in volume to fulfill the heart desires of Israel and Morocco, with enough left over, goes to waste yearly.

The world ranks the worth of a country's water resource according to size of “how available those resources are to the population; how developed the country’s water infrastructure and delivery systems are; how efficiently or wastefully a country uses its water; and how well a country manages any environmental impact to its water,” according to an International Trade internet publication finding.

Israel and Morocco face yearly water problems on levels that are mostly unknown in Ghana: extreme droughts, increases in regional conflicts that restrict access to water supply systems and environmental concerns that bring uncertainty as to how long the water resource they have may last. Yet, demand on water supply is met yearly.

A large number of countries, Australia, South Africa, Spain, India, Cuba, Hong Kong, are ranked as “having a "high" level of water stress ..  which means having water demand above 40% of the maximum renewable resource …” according to an article “Water scarcity in Africa and the Middle East,” published in the UK Guardian.

Thanks to nature, Ghana has genuinely only to worry mostly about floods during the rainy seasons. Yet, in spite of all the abundance, there are always worries about perennial water shortages.

So abundant is water in Ghana, that to maintain a safe depth at the Akosombo lake, it is required seasonally to spill water at the dam whenever the depth of the lake behind it creeps closer to the maximum height of 278 ft.

Where do all this spilled water from the lake, plus the surplus rain water go?

To hear from the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), there have been efforts to correct the problem.

There was a “Five-Year Rehabilitation and Development Plan” that resulted in the Water Sector Restructuring Project (WSRP) and $140 million foreign donors support for the project, which started during the Rawlings era.

Additional work was done, at the cost of some tens of millions of dollars during the Kufuor era to complete the “East – West interconnections”.

Places like Cape Coast and Tamale had substantial improvement in water supply as a result of these latest GWCS projects.

There is no denying that the projects have helped to some extent.  But in 2012 we still have water problems in places West like Sekondi/Takoradi, a very major metropolitan area. 

You would have to wonder if we did enough, whether the right infra-structures were put in place and whether we have been sufficiently creative, with regard to tackling our water problems. 

Constant water supply to all places at all times should be a mission of concern and a key target for our creative engineers to work their minds on. 

And from the lay man, we could also ask what engineering feat is actually needed to solve a problem that has so far seemed endemic.

Harvest rainwater, recapture and redirect spilled water from the dam to inland reservoirs for consumption at places in the West?

Surely, there are water and civil engineers in Ghana.  Outside Ghana, there are experts in places like Israel and Morocco who have done it.  And the World Bank, if asked, could help. 

This “dog in the manger” attitude that prevents us from seeking realistic help must stop.  It is the only craze that prevents us from the effective management of our resources.

E. Ablorh-Odjidja, Publisher www.ghanadot.com, Washington, DC, May 24, 2012
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