The government yesterday received commendation from the World Bank Country Director for Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Pierre Laporte, for its efforts to promote simplified sewerage systems within low-income urban communities in the country.
He made the commendation during a familiarisation tour of the Ashaiman Simplified Sewerage Facility and Treatment Plant, which is one of the projects being funded by the World Bank particularly in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) and Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area (GKMA).
It should be noted that GAMA comprises 25 of the total 29 districts within the Greater Accra Region and Greater Kumasi is an extension of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (Bantama, Nhyiaeso, Subin, Manhyia South and Manhyia North Constituencies) to include the newly-created assemblies, namely Tafo-Pankrono, Suame, Kwadaso, Oforikrom, Asokwa, Asokore Mampong municipalities.
Such projects involve the provision of environmental sanitation and water supply services to priority low-income areas, improvement and expansion of the water distribution network, and provision of household toilet facilities.
The Ashaiman Simplified Sewerage Facility and Treatment Plant can be said to be an example of environmental sanitation service.
As for household toilets, we can recall that during a tour of GAMA projects in June 2019, officials of the Finance Ministry were informed by the project coordinator that 22,346 toilets had been provided and that the figure exceeded the 19,100 targeted by 17 per cent, with one more year to provide more.
We see Mr Laporte's commendation as confirming the hard work being done by those involved in both the GAMA and GKMA projects.
Most of the time, we hear of state projects stalling or being shoddily executed, so even though we cannot rule out these, we think so far, these projects are being handled well.
We appeal to the handlers to continue to put in their best because their efforts have begun to pay off.
Is it not heart-warming to hear that the GAMA Sanitation and Water Project helped to reduce open defaecation in the GAMA from 11 per cent in 2015 to 6.2 per cent in 2021?
We also hear timely and good execution of the projects usually encourages the World Bank to finance more of such projects that come to improve life for the disadvantaged in society.
In fact, the World Bank is not just a financial institution but an international development organisation whose role is to reduce poverty by lending money to the governments of its poorer members to improve their economies and to improve the standard of living of their people.
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This means once a poor member country like Ghana does things right, it should not be difficult for it to attract its assistance.
In the current circumstances where Ghana's middle-income status has become a subject of debate, the only option is for it to do things right to get the assistance to consolidate that status.
Besides, the country's good performance in the GAMA GKMA projects will speak well of it in the global space because if nothing at all, the water and sanitation projects will be seen as efforts towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6.
This goal has it that by 2030, all nations should achieve universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all and even go beyond drinking water, sanitation and hygiene to also address the quality and sustainability of water resources, which are critical to the survival of people and the planet.
