A latest Afrobarometer survey has revealed that Ghana performed poorly in the provision of water and good sanitation.
According to the report, Lesotho, Kenya and Malawi had steady ratings while the situation in Ghana, Mali, Tanzania and Uganda deteriorated.
“Ratings became steadily more positive in three countries (Lesotho, Kenya, and Malawi) and worsened in four countries (Ghana, Mali, Tanzania, and Uganda).”
The report conducted in 34 African countries also described the performance of African leaders in improving access to water and sanitation as “fairly” or “very” poor.
The findings of the report were based on data collected between 2011 and 2013 in the 34 countries.
The report also revealed that majority of the population in the 34 countries have no clean water in their homes, 72 percent lack access to clean sewerage, adding that the situation was even worse in some rural areas in the countries where the survey was sampled.
The report also added that about 44 percent of the people sampled lacked access to pipe-borne water.
A 2014 report by the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that more than 748 million people do not have access to improved drinking water, including 325 million in sub-Saharan Africa.
About 2.5 billion people live without improved sanitation, WHO added.
The Ghana Coalition of NGOs in water and sanitation Thursday revealed that Ghana loses about USD290 million yearly as a result of poor sanitation and bad hygiene.
“The water and sanitation programme of the World Bank estimated that Ghana loses USD290 million annually–at the current rate of USD1 to Ghc3, which amounts to about Ghc879 million–because of the country’s inability to make improved sanitation and hygiene services available to the population,” said Benjamin Arthur, Executive Director of CONIWAS
Source: GhanaWeb
