Ghanaians pay more for water than UK and US residents

By Isabella Gyau Orhin


Ghanaians pay more for water than their United States and United Kingdom counterparts, according to the 2006 Human Development Report launched in Accra on Tuesday.

The report says while Ghanaians in the capital city, Accra, pay US $3.20 for a cubic metre or 1000 litres of water, their counterparts in New York, USA pay US$ 0.70 per cubic metre of water with residents of London in the UK paying about US$ 1.80 per cubic metre of water.

“Across the world, the poor are forced to pay much more than their affluent neighbors,” says a summary of the report.
Further analysis show that Ghanaians pay approximately US$0.003 US per litre which is about 29 cedis which adds up to 600 cedis for a bucket of water which is 21 litres.
This is against that of the US residents who pay 0.70 per 1000 litres or cubic metre. This means that for one litre US residents pay US$ 0.0007 which works up to approximately six cedis per litre or 126 cedis per bucket of 21 litres.
The UK also pay about US$ 0.002 per litre which is about approximately 18 cedis per litre or 378 cedis per bucket of 21 litres.


The report has therefore called on governments and world leaders to put water at the centre of poverty reduction strategies and budget planning.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) number seven is to ensure environmental sustainability with emphasis on water and sanitation.
However, the report says if the current trend continues, poor countries will miss the MDG 7, of halving the number of people without access to water by 235 million people.
Also 800 million people in total will still lack access to potable water while the sanitation target will be missed by 431 million people with 2.1 billion people still without decent sanitation.
According to the report, a bold coherent national water plan grounded in strategies for reducing poverty and extreme inequality backed by predictable finance is a first step in the right direction. It also said a new, more strategic approach that puts the poor at the centre of the solution is essential to reach the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The report dubbed Beyond Scarcity: Power and Politics and the Global Water Crisis further says that people living in the slums of Nairobi in Kenya pay five times more than the rich living in the same city, while the poor households in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Jamaica spend an average of over 10 percent of their income on water.

The report said even in the United Kingdom spending more than three percent of family income on water is considered an economic hardship.
The biggest financing gaps are in rural areas and in informal urban settlements, the report said adding, closing those gaps require increased financing and a reorientation of public spending to rural communities through the provision of wells and boreholes and to urban slum areas through the provision of standpipes.

The report points out that the long standing “Public versus Private” debate on water will not bring prices down. Recent debates on water delivery policy in developing countries have been dominated by a polarizing discussion on privatization as against public ownership.
However, the authors of the report argue that this is a wrong choice since it diverts attention from the ultimate aim of finding a lasting solution of getting potable water to the poor in society.
“The debate over the relative merits of public- private sector performance has been a distraction from the inadequate performance of both public and private water providers in overcoming the global water deficit, the report said.

The report argues strongly that lifeline tariffs would allow poor households to access a minimum amount of water for very low prices or no charge.
Presenting the key findings of the report at the launch in Accra, the Chief Executive Officer of Wastecare Associate, an advocacy organization, Mr. Lukman Y. Salif said there is the need for Ghana to place water and sanitation at the centre of the development agenda.

Ghana aims to achieve 85percent coverage for both water supply and sanitation by 2015, which is a higher coverage ratio than what is recommended by the MDGs which is 73 percent. To reach the 85 percent target, Ghana will need a capacity increase of 4.8 times for water supply and five times for sanitation.

The total cost involved according to Mr. Salif is estimated at 1.5 billion dollars with an annual estimate of 68 million dollars for the rural and small towns and 81 million for urban water supply.
In total, 12 million and 15 million more people will need to be provided with potable water and improved sanitation respectively, leaving an unserved population of 4.1 million and 4.8 million for waste and sanitation respectively.


Mr. Salif called for the allocation of one percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for water and sanitation through public spending. He also said if Ghanaians are able to send piped water to various homes, it will reduce diarrheoal disease by 70percent, while homes with flash toilets can reduce diarrheoa by 50 percent.

Such acts will also reduce the burden on the National health Insurance Scheme and free resources for the development of critical areas of the economy.
“In short improvement in water and sanitation means the lives of the poor will improve, since they will spend less on health,” Mr. Salif said.
The Minister for Works and Housing Hackman Owusu Agyeman said in spite of the obstacles; the water sector will meet the MDG target by 2015.

He said sanitation which is a bigger challenge is being tackled by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), adding that plans are advanced to build a treatment plant at Kpone and Weija to improve water supply in Accra.

He said unlike in the past when water was drawn from the rural areas without supplying the surrounding villages, the various water projects going on in places like Cape Coast, Koforidua, Assin among others are all taking supplying the towns and villages along the route of the pipes
Sometimes urban poverty can be more stressful than rural poverty and it comes with the stress of not having water and sanitation,” he said.
The Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Mr. Dauoda Toure said without water, life becomes more endangered and precarious.
He said at least every person should get 20 litres of water per day in all parts of the world.
The report further said almost two million children die each year for want of a glass of clean water and adequate sanitation. Millions of women and young girls are forced to spend hours collecting and carrying water, restricting their opportunities and their choices. And water-borne infectious diseases are holding back poverty reduction and economic growth in some of the world’s poorest countries.
Beyond the household, competition for water as a productive resource is intensifying. Symptoms of that competition include the collapse of water-based ecological systems, declining river flows and large-scale groundwater depletion. Conflicts over water are intensifying within countries, with the rural poor losing out. The potential for tensions between countries is also growing, though there are large potential human development gains from increased cooperation.
The Human Development Report continues to frame debates on some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity.
Dauoda Toure said the Human Development Report 2006 investigates the underlying causes and consequences of a crisis that leaves 1.2 billion people without access to safe water and 2.6 billion without access to sanitationThe report also argues for a concerted drive to achieve water and sanitation for all through national strategies and a global plan of action.it also examines the social and economic forces that are driving water shortages and marginalizing the poor in agriculture while looking at the scope for international cooperation to resolve cross-border tensions in water management
The HDR is prepared annually and is launched in over 100 countries world wide This years report Mr.Toure said include special contributions from Gordon Brown and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, President Lula Da Silva of Brazil , Former US President Jimmy Carter, and the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan.