Residents of Dekpor Horme in the Ketu North Municipality of the Volta Region have appealed to authorities for potable drinking water as they continue to struggle with water crisis.
A mechanised borehole constructed to serve the community with a population of over 12,000 had broken down for over a decade.
Residents have since been compelled to depend on polluted water fetched from a dam constructed in 1982.
Information gathered from Adom News correspondent, Odehyeba Owusu Job, notes that residents, particularly those who cannot afford to buy sachet water, use the contaminated dam as their only source of drinking water, exposing them to serious health risks.
Children as young as 10 and mothers were seen staggering deep into the less disturbed portion of the dam to fetch water at the peril of their lives.
A resident explained “This is our only source of water, we use it for washing, cooking, and drinking because not everyone can afford sachet water. But this water is heavily polluted especially during the raining season, it carries all sort of contaminants including debris and human excretes but we have no choice than to drink.”
Another resident lamented, “We don’t have pipe-borne water here so we drink from the contaminated dam but this same dam is where men in this community bath in with soap and therefore, we are kneeling down appealing to the Government, NGOs, individuals, benevolent organisations and cooperate institutions to come to our Aid to provide us with mechanized borehole for us the residents said”.
Assembly Member for the area, Jonas Jopito Zolypku, fears there could an outbreak of waterborne diseases.
He said the only permanent solution to the acute water challenge in the area is the construction of water treatment plant to treat raw water, pumped from the dam for distribution to homes.
Mr. Ahiatsi, who is the chairman of the Dekpor Horme festival in the area, said the situation is very worrying.
He called on NGOs and government to come to the aid of the community.