Oti Secondary Technical School is facing a water crisis, forcing hundreds of boarding students to search for water in nearby neighborhoods.
According to the Ghana News Agency, many students are seen carrying containers in search of water during lesson hours.
Some students (names withheld), expressed their frustration to the GNA, saying “We have been experiencing water crisis since school resumed and this is adversely affecting our academic activities.
“By the time we get to our classrooms, we are already tired, and we cannot even concentrate, so we sleep in class.”
The students have appealed to the government, the Krachi East Municipal Assembly, and individuals to help resolve the water crisis.
Mr. Bernard Aborkugya Mensah, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), has assured students of his commitment to resolving the acute water shortage as soon as possible.
He mentioned that his engineers are working tirelessly to find a lasting solution to the challenge and restore water supplies.
The Ghana News Agency reported that the school has been facing water shortages for a long time, impacting effective teaching and learning as students spend contact hours searching for water.
Students of T.I. Ahmadiyya Senior High School will no longer need to venture beyond the campus in pursuit of water, as the Water Company Limited has successfully restored water supply to the school.
This development comes in the wake of reports highlighting the challenges faced by the students and the subsequent impact on their daily activities.
Since Monday, students had been navigating various locations in search of water after depleting the reserves in their on-campus reservoir.
The journey led them to cover several kilometers in search of water around Asokwa and neighboring areas.
Officials from the Ghana Water Company Limited attributed the water distribution shortage to recent intermittent power outages.
However, management has now announced the resolution of the situation, with water flowing through the school’s taps as of Thursday evening.
The Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) has reported that the water shortage situation in the Tamale community has worsened due to the prevailing harmattan weather conditions in the northern part of the country.
Stanley Martey, the Director of Communications at the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), stated that the unfavourable weather conditions have caused the Nawuni River to dry up, exacerbating the situation.
Member of Parliament for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, raised concerns on Tuesday, February 13, about the acute water shortage in the Tamale metropolis, which he said has persisted for over two years. He lamented that the situation has brought immense hardship to residents in his constituency.
Stanley Martey attributed the problem largely to the dry weather conditions, highlighting the challenges faced by the Ghana Water Company Limited in providing adequate water supply to the affected areas.
“Around this time of the year, we are in the dry season, and the levels of the Nawuni River, where we fetch water for treatment, have gone down. When the levels go down, they win alluvial sand, which destroys the quality of the raw water. So, it becomes difficult for us to get water with low turbidity to treat.”
Meanwhile, the Ghana Water Company Limited has announced that it will shut down one of its plants at Kpong, starting from Wednesday, February 14. This plant serves the people of Somanya and its environs.
Mr. Martey stated that the temporary shutdown is necessary to facilitate the installation of a new interconnection pipeline and foot valves at the Kpong Water Treatment Plant. He assured the public that measures have been taken to ensure there is no water shortage during this period.
“In the last two weeks, we have been planning for this interconnection, and we have informed the areas that will be affected, especially the entire Krobo area.
“We have been able to work out some 3 million gallons of water more into the system to ensure that we can finish the job within 48 hours to put the plant back into operation.”
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have assessed that , no fewer than 78 million children in Nigeria are at the greatest risk from a confluence of three water-related risks.
One-third of children in Nigeria do not have access to at least basic water at home, and two-thirds do not have basic sanitation services, according to Dr. Jane Bevan, Chief of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene for UNICEF Nigeria, who made this known in a statement on Monday in Abuja.
Also, just a quarter of kids can wash their hands at home because there isn’t enough water or soap, she said, citing other issues with hand hygiene.
She disclosed further that as a result, Nigeria is one of the 10 countries that carry the heaviest burden of child deaths from diseases caused by inadequate WASH, such as diarrhoeal diseases.
The statement read in part: “Nigeria also ranks second out of 163 countries globally with the highest risk of exposure to climate and environmental threats.
“Groundwater levels are also dropping, requiring some communities to dig wells twice as deep as just a decade ago. At the same time, rainfall has become more erratic and intense, leading to floods that contaminate scarce water supplies.
“I believe we need to rapidly scale up investment in the sector, including from global climate financing, strengthen climate resilience in the WASH sector and communities, increase effective and accountable systems, coordination, and capacities to provide water and sanitation services and implement the UN-Water SDG6 Global Acceleration Framework.
“If we continue at the current pace, it will take 16 years to achieve access to safe water for all in Nigeria. We cannot wait that long, and the time to move quickly is now. Investing in climate-resilient water, sanitation, and hygiene services is not only a matter of protecting children’s health today but also ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come.”
The statement was released ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference in New York, from March 22-24, 2023, co-hosted by Tajikistan and the Netherlands, called for urgent action to address the water crisis in Nigeria.
The UN 2023 Water Conference, formally known as the 2023 Conference for the Midterm Comprehensive Review of Implementation of the UN Decade for Action on Water and Sanitation (2018-2028), will result in a summary of proceedings from the UN General Assembly President, Csaba Korosi, that will feed into the 2023 session of the UN High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.
