An acute water shortage has hit Bole in the Savannah region with residents sacrificing their sleep and comfort to access water.
The worst affected communities include Korupe, Jakala, Yelwa and Hill Top areas. Field visits by the members of Constituency Watch indicated that some of the communities have not had water running through their taps for almost two weeks.
Residents of Korupe, where water has not been available for about a month have appealed to the management of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) to urgently address challenges with its pipelines that had led to an acute water shortage in the area.
They contended that the situation was affecting their daily activities since they had to walk for long distances to fetch water for domestic and commercial activities.
Speaking to the constituency watch, a Bole based association made up of the youth led by the group’s president Haruna Obey during a visit to the area, residents particularly those around Chief Palace area up to Nyimange and its environs, said the situation continued to affect hundreds of residents.
“As it stands now, we do not know when the problem will be rectified. We have only been told that the management of GWCL is working to address the challenge,” a resident, Mrs Habiba Adamu, said.
For the past three weeks, residents of Korupe have been experiencing water shortage.
The situation has become very worrying, as both adults, particularly women, and schoolchildren spend time in search of water from neighbouring communities.
Some of the affected residents have resorted to drawing water from wells and using sachet water for domestic use.
‘Chop bar’ operators in Bole, said the water shortage had forced them to reduce the quantity of food they cook daily.
‘“We do not have water so we cannot continue to cook in large quantities. Now we have asked some of our workers to hold on until the situation is resolved because we pay them daily,” one said.
Another victim, Mr Daniel Malsep, said the only borehole serving the people leaving around Bole mango lane (coal tar end) and some government officials have broken down for almost two months. He told constituency watch that he had personally visited the Bole office of the GWCL to find out what the problem was but he was only told measures were in place to address it and as we speak now the bole hole has still not been fixed.
The situation is equally dire at Mempeasem and Bole junction area where residents have to wake up at ungodly hours to join long queues to draw water.
At the Junction Area, residents explained that their taps had been empty for more than a week and only had a little flow last Thursday night.
A resident, Hajia Zenabu said although water flowed yesterday afternoon, the pressure was low and called on the Bole District Assembly and the Member of Parliament to fix the problem as soon as possible.