Residents of Gbeduri, Tinguri, Yawoku, and Gbani in the West Mamprusi Municipality of the North East Region spend several hours toiling for water for domestic use which they say is affecting their daily activities.
The residents in these four communities get their water from a springing stream and dugout due to inadequate boreholes in the communities.
They describe their source of water as contaminated and infectious but have no other alternative than to be drinking from that source.
The residents lament how they have to labour for close to four hours to draw water from the borehole for domestic use.
The inadequate boreholes in these communities have compelled the residents, especially women to always travel far to fetch springing water which has algae on the surface.
The women are washing their clothes and at the same time trudging their feet inside the water before they can fetch.
Crisis affecting marriage
The assemblyman for the Tinguri electoral area, Iddrissu Bugzua in an interview with Asaase News laments that women are rejecting marriage proposals from men in these four communities due to the water crisis in the dry season.
“If you ask any child of this community or this electoral area what our major problem is, that child will tell you it is water. I have one of my sub-chiefs who once even said people find it difficult in getting wives from other surrounding communities because any woman they speak to, they will say Tinguri has no water and for that matter when they come they will be toiling and carrying water from distances,” he said.
Some of the residents who can afford to buy the water are depending on donkey carts and tricycles (motorking) drivers to get the water for their household use.
The women who fetch from the only borehole in the area say they are spending several hours before they get water to bathe their wards to leave for school.
“When you wake up around 3am, before you get the water unless sunrise around 5am to 6am that you will get one basin of water and because we are not getting the water fast, the children always go to school late,” Nantomah Rafia told Asaase News.
The residents are appealing to the government and NGOs to come to their aid to provide them with potable drinking water.
Dokurugu Alhassan
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