President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has made good a campaign promise he unconditionally made to one of the numerous thirsty communities in the Upper East region before the 2016 general elections by providing the area with a manual borehole drilled at Gh¢15,000.
Water from the new pump, provided by the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), will quench the thirst of the Zaare East Electoral Area- a stronghold of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) who conquered all three polling stations in the area at the 2016 polls.
The Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Ayine Bukari, who commissioned the borehole Monday on behalf of the president, strongly recommended rainwater harvest as a crucial answer to the water crisis often suffered particularly by inhabitants of regions with abysmally low water table.
“His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana, when he was going round campaigning, visited [the] Zaare Electoral Area and the people of Zaare A-urugubiisi appealed to him for water. He promised them that he would get them water. Today, we are here in Zaare A-urugubiisi to commission the [borehole] in fulfillment of the promise he made to the people of Zaare,” he declared.
More than 3,000 people, including schoolchildren, compete over just 10 boreholes mainly for domestic use in an electoral area of several waterless wells. The new borehole is the tenth the area has received long after the last one was bored in 2015. And, although the new water shaft brings some amount of relief to the thirsting populace, it is still much like a split drop in an ocean of needs for a dry community where pipe-routed water is not common and most of the sparsely distributed wells are either seated on a low water table or have collapsed beyond recovery.
“We have to get those institutions that are already in charge of [water] to organise fora to educate the people how to harvest rainwater. This will go a long way to help the people of the Upper East Region if we give them good education. It’s happening in our neighbouring country, Burkina Faso. Why can’t it happen in Ghana, too? It’s really going to happen in Ghana, too,” the Regional Minister told newsmen moments after he had pumped out fresh water from the borehole by himself and symbolically drunk from a calabash to loud cheers from a crowd of community members.
Thankful community begs for protection from armed robbers
The crowd who witnessed the event was full of gratitude to government for providing the relief, with an opinion leader, Nyaaba Atanga, strongly assuring the NPP of better results at future elections in the area.
“We’ve been voting for the NDC and nothing has changed. Even though NPP did not win in Zaare here, yet they have come to help us. The NPP is really a party that is people-centred. We promise that come 2020 there shall be improvement in the voting figures,” he said as the crowd clapped and yelled in approval.
Veronica Ayamga, a mother to an undisclosed number of children, summed up the respite the borehole had brought to all women especially at Zaare A-urugubiisi, saying: “We have water problem here. The whole community has only
one borehole for about 700 people. The community is big. To fetch water- be it in the morning or evening- has been a problem. Our children who are in school suffer the most as they need to fetch water before they go to school. This new borehole has brought peace and our children shall no longer be late for school.”
In all the show of thankfulness for the assistance, the community did not forget to bring to government’s notice something at the very core of their social life- the horror of insecurity endured mostly at night for the lack of electricity in the area.
“I would like to appeal to government to come to our aid. This section, Zaare A-urugubiisi, does not have electricity. Other areas have light. They need light so schoolchildren can read. They need light for so many things. There are no electricity poles. Just look around. Armed robbers are taking advantage of the darkness to attack community members. They hide behind the rocks, attack people and take their motorbikes and mobile phones. But I have set up a community watchdog committee to check such attacks. The attacks are so many I can’t count. We need government’s intervention,” the Assemblyman for Zaare East, Jacob Ayuusa, pleaded strongly in an interview with journalists.
