Accessible potable water, is it a realistic Millennium Development Goal?

In a typical rural community like Abono in the Ashanti region, the majority of the population are into food crop farming and fishing. Undoubtedly, women (female folk) constitute two-thirds of the population structure. Their produce includes plantain, cassava, cocoyam, and vegetables such as tomatoes, garden eggs, etc. Fishing from the Lake only yields small-sized tilapia, locally known as “Apatre”. The minority (10%) are into cash crop/export farming like cocoa and oil palm. The people of Abono are under-resourced with respect to potable clean water supply as there is only a borehole with a handpump serving a population of about 2000, unlike Petrensa with four (4). The population of Abono fluctuates on factors such as tourists and other site seers to the Lake.

The female folk who in our local parlance do the household chores normally fetch water for household duties such as washing of clothes, bathing, cooking, etc. Abono, as earlier stated, has one point source of water supply in a form of a Nira-made borehole situated close to the Abono Catholic school park, and opposite to the Chief’s residence. Due to its biased point of location, majority of the population prefer fetching water from the Lake and an almost dried-up stream called Ebo. This stream serves as an immediate boundary of the community to the east.

Unlike the Petrensa community, indigenous people of the Abono area are charged GHp1 per 18 litre container used to fetch water, which according to them, is expensive. On the average, women in Abono fetch about 36 litres of water from the point source each day. However, they would want to patronize the Lake and River Ebo which come with no charge for majority of their household activities. In an estimate, they fetch about 180 litres per woman from these informal water sources. Again, they find it difficult in pumping to draw water from the borehole and also there are complaints about the taste and its hard nature. Perhaps, these and many are the reasons for the low patronage of the Nira borehole which has been termed in our local setting as “Apompi Joe”. Other informal water sources that were seldom patronized were hand dug wells and rain water harvest.

Interestingly, school kids after closing from school, converge at the lakeside to usher in tourists and tell them about the mythological history surrounding the lake. They sometimes get tokens like few cedi notes and toffees for their hospitable gesture. In addition, some of these foreigners exchange addresses and phone numbers with these kids.

Primarily, data collection by the WASHCost field team was a little bit slow because the indigenous people were hesitant. After they were given tokens (canned drink) for respondents, indigenous people who had already answered questions were availing themselves to be interviewed on behalf of their neighbours. Others who were on their way to the farm conveyed the good news to their colleagues.