Residents of Ave-Dakpa, the capital of Akatsi North District in the Volta Region, have been battling water shortage for the past four months.
Searching for water has become a daily routine for the residents, particularly women and children.
According to reports, the situation has assumed alarming levels as reports reveal community folks are currently sharing the only local dam with cattle and other animals for survival.
The only community water treatment plant has been shut down for over 90 days owing to the non-payment of accumulated electricity bills to the tune of some GH¢13,000.
And the situation, according to residents in the area, will bite them hard as the Christmas and New Year festivities approach.
Voice of Ave-Dakpa, a community based civil society organisation, revealed that leadership failure and mismanagement are to blame for the Ave-Dakpa water situation.
Management of the community water treatment is still unable to render proper accounts as to the proceeds of sales of treated water.
Former District Chief Executive (DCE) of Akatsi North, Dr Prince Amuzu Sodoke, is said to have written officially to the management of the Ave-Dakpa Water Community Board to render account of their activities when he took over after dissolving the old board and forming a new one but also failed to setup a proper system to solve the crisis.
Community activists have resorted to social media platforms to drum home campaign and calls for investigation and solutions to the matter from the government since local leaders have failed them.
“What did they do with money from sales of water? The water management must tell us. We are going to go into this. If people are owing for using water, they must pay. If it is the management that has embezzled money for which they could not pay electricity bills, we shall pursue them,” a livid Alex Adzudor noted.
Mr Adzudor charged the leaders of the assembly to show leadership by going into the circumstances surrounding the acute water shortage and find a sustainable solution to it.
Another activist, John Ahiale, called for a concerted effort by all to resolve the issue.
“Water is life. The acute water shortage here is a worry to us. We are suffering. Let’s all discuss how to ensure that the indebtedness to ECG is settled so that water pumping and distribution can resume,” Mr Ahiale submitted.
“We cannot continue to be in this situation for over three months and counting. I am very sure if we were to have a District Chief Executive in office now, this problem may have been solved without delay. A DCE in office would have instructed the ECG to restore electricity supply for the community water to operate,” Mr Ahiale observed.
“Our leaders at the District Assembly are the ones failing us. They are so self-centered, and very selfish that our welfare does not concern them. Why should Akatsi North District reject president’s nominee twice? Across the country Ghana, most local assembly nominees have been confirmed. Why Akatsi North? We need to sit up.”
He has, therefore, appealed to the Chief of Ave-Dakpa, Torgbuiga Nyamekor Glakpe V and his entire traditional set-up, to take up the matter of water as political leaders have failed as well as send a special delegation to the seat of government in Accra.
Special Aide to late President J.J. Rawlings, Dr Donald Agumenu, was at hand to bail out the Ave-Dakpa water problem when a similar issue with unpaid electricity bills arose some years ago.
President Akufo-Addo’s two nominees, have so far failed on two occasions to gain the nod from the Akatsi North District as DCE.
The absence of a substantive DCE is hampering decision taking and policy formulation for development in the area.