Calus Von Brazi
3 July 2009
(Page 2 of 2)
Bilateral agreements
These countries have bilateral agreements that ensure that irrespective of which malcontent in uniform disrupts their stability and tranquility, there is no disruption of water supply to the members of the pacts.
The catch here is that there is a high level of benefit for each country's domestic consumption such that they are not perturbed if treated water from the numerous tributaries that comprise the Nile are sent to far flung countries other than their source countries.
When juxtaposed against the backdrop of what the Ghana Water Company intends doing, fears of what occurred between Iran and Iraq as recounted above over the Shatt-Al-Arab that induced the beginning of military hostilities between the two neighbouring states immediately come to mind: the Shatt al Arab supplied water to southern Iraq and Kuwait and doubles as an outlet to the ocean to and from the port of Basra; fears of what water has imposed on the good people of Syria and Israel as a result of the (un)fair use of that which takes its source from the Golan Heights: Israel fully annexed control of this vital source of water in 1981 after seizing same in the war of 1967; fears of the threat value of the Government of Turkey cutting the flow of water to Syria and adjoining regions during their occasional spats: Turkey signed an agreement with Syria in 1987 to supply it with a flow of water at 500 meters a second which is violated when relations deteriorate between these two neighbours.
All these point out that the export of water, if not carefully thought out, can lead to serious disputes, some (as noted above) enough to degenerate into military aggression.
I am not by any means insinuating that the export of water to Togo by the Republic of Ghana would necessarily lead to war; on the contrary, I am inverting the logic, that the inability to satisfy the Ghanaian consumer is a recipe for disaster for what is the guarantee that those who would not benefit from the water resources of Ghana would sit pliantly by and watch the very thing being denied them traveling in long pipes to our neighbours?
Sabotage
How do we guarantee that they would not sabotage the free-flow of water "legitimately" seeing that the very act of sabotage may be the only means of averting water borne diseases simply because they are not recipients of treated water?
Have we found a way of ensuring that the Volta River, which is likely to become the source of any such export does not become the very source of conflict between Ghana and all the states that have anything to do with the Volta, both upstream and downstream? It is the likelihood of morally sound sabotage (although criminal to all intent and purposes) that may induce the reality of retaliation or reprisal, which if not well managed, could escalate into an avoidable inferno.
The Republic of Turkey for example has managed to pipe water to its over 70 million citizens so that nobody frowns if the excess is sent to Syria; have we satisfied the people of Baatsona, Burma Camp, Tesano, La Wireless and Kojo Sardine, Adenta, Teshie-Nungua, Madina, Asongman and Musuko to make it feasible and morally justifiable to pipe water to Togo?
Somebody talk to me for I dare say, we are deluding ourselves if we think that for a few dollars more, we can sacrifice the aspirations and expectations of the good people of Ghana. Perhaps, it is the overlooking of these realities that would water the opposition to water resource exportation as espoused by the Ghana Water Company. Jehovah Tsidkenu protect us from water world wars now and always!
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