PROTECT WATER RESOURCES-GHANA WATER CO.

Mr. Tulashi making a point while addressing a durbar

The Acting Production Manager of Ashanti Production of the Ghana Water Company, Charles Tulashi has appealed to Ghanaians to do everything possible to preserve the water resources available for the current and future generations. 

According to him, water is one of the few indispensable natural resources that God has endowed the nation and must be protected. 

A section of the pupils at the Barekese dam

Addressing school pupils, teachers, media practitioners and staff of the Ghana Water Company at the Barekese Water Headworks in the Ashanti region in commemoration of this year’s edition of the UN World Water Day, Mr. Tulashi acknowledged the fact that human beings will continue to pursue development projects and programmes in all aspects their individual and national lives, including building and construction, farming and mining. 

These should however, never be at the expense of water resources without which no man can survive or serious human activity can take place.

 He mentioned illegal logging, mining, crop farming, fish farming and improper waste disposal as some of the activities of some Ghanaians that pose serious threat to water resources in the country.

 The Pra Basin Officer of the Water Resources Commission, Madam Abena Dufie Wiredu emphasized that water is life and that Ghanaians should not do anything that endanger water bodies. 

The Station Manager of the Barekese Headworks, Opoku Ware, told GBC that, even though illegal logging along the catchment areas of the Barekese dam has in the last few weeks reduced after a security swoop on the perpetrators, substantial harm has already been caused.

 He said however that, not all hope is lost and therefore entreated all the stakeholders especially the leaders of the communities along the Offin River and the dam, the Environmental Protection Agency and workers to protect the dam, which supplies potable water to residents of the Kumasi metropolis, from collapsing. 

As part of activities marking the World Water Day, school pupils, teachers, media practitioners and some staff of the Ghana Water Company were taken round the Barekese Dam and educated on the processes of water production.

 

BACKGROUND TO WORLD WATER DAY

International World Water Day is held annually on 22 March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and advocating for the sustainable management of freshwater resources.

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater.

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. 

The United Nations General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/47/193 of 22 December 1992 by which 22 March of each year was declared World Day for Water, to be observed starting in 1993, in conformity with the recommendations of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) contained in Chapter 18 (Fresh Water Resources) of Agenda 21.

States were invited to devote the Day, as appropriate in the national context, to concrete activities such as the promotion of public awareness through the production and dissemination of documentaries and the organization of conferences, round tables, seminars and expositions related to the conservation and development of water resources and the implementation of the recommendations of Agenda 21.