Prof. Mike Yaw Osei-Atweneboana, Director of CSIR-Water Research Institute, and a Scientist at the Bio-Medical and Public Health Research Unit of the Institute has stated that, due to the devastating nature of pollution on the country’s water bodies, some people are drinking water that looks like tea saying, such waters are polluted with poisonous substances such as mercury, lead and others which contains a lot of microorganism.
He alerted that, if such waters entered into human systems, it is going to affect the digestive system, kidney system, and the heart likewise, the unborn babies within the uterus of the mother.
Prof. Mike Osei-Atweneboana outlined 3 basic things that is very crucial to human life mentioning food, shelter, and water. “We can go about 30 days or a little more without eating food before we may die. For water, if you don’t drink water for about 4 to 7 days, you may die. This tells us how important water is to our lives”.
He emphasized that, about 60% of the human body is made up of water , and he added that, there are other parts of the human body that need water for their physiological activities. “If you take something like the brain, it has almost 74% of water. Blood is almost 80 to 90 percent of water. If you take the kidney, it has about 73 percent of water”.
The above mentioned human parts he indicated, use water to function effectively hence, the importance of water to human. “It is not just the water that we are talking about but, what is the quality of water that is going into our systems. So, if the quality of water that goes into our systems is not of good quality, it means that your body system will not get the right water it needs in order to exhibit the functionality of the body”.
Prof. Osei-Atweneboana further revealed that, most of the water levels in Ghana because of population are indeed so bad that, it cannot be used for anything even though Ghana Water Company Limited is trying their best, but because of the poor quality of water, the amount of money that is needed to treat one gallon of water has changed drastically including the technology being used.
“Now, they need advanced technology which is very expensive to treat even one gallon of water. So, these are some of the challenges that we face as a country. We believe that it is time to change our attitude as a country towards maintaining the legacy that our fathers left for us. Our fathers left us a very good legacy- very good water. But for us, with the generation yet to come, what we are leaving them is water that is so much polluted, I fear our children, or our unborn children would come and curse us for destroying their livelihood. Indeed, there will be evidence that our forefathers left us very good quality water but for us we cared less and left them water in deplorable states”.
Prof. Mike Yaw Osei-Atweneboana therefore, recommended three key things that Ghanaians need to do to save the polluted water bodies saying, the first has to do with infrastructure.
He averred that, considering the 17 SDGs of which Water and Sanitation is SDG 6, there are some countries which as at 2020, had their access to water at 70% while others were at 99%.
Ghana he said, is doing around 26% to 50% of access to water which serves as a threat in reaching the SDG by 2030. He added that, looking at the pace Ghana is moving, it needs to double up by 20 or 40 times otherwise, the nation would not be able to meet the SDG which is safe and clean water and sanitation by 2030.
The next challenge he mentioned had to do with education, indicating that, there is the need to educate the people on how to use water and education on attitudinal change towards the use of water. “I believe strongly that our attitude towards water must change, knowing that water is life and making a conscious effort to maintain and preserve the integrity of our water bodies, will go a long way in conserving water while valuing it more.”
The third thing he stated had to do with policies and regulations. “There are a lot of policies that we have in this country to maintain clean and good water. There are a lot of regulations and law to protect our water resources. However, our biggest challenge is the enforcement of this regulations. I believe if the public are sensitized and made aware of certain sanctions or restrictions that come with mismanaging these resources, caution will be taken.
For those into galamsey, we call on the politicians to have the will to enforce existing laws. If because of gold, our water bodies are destroyed a time in the future will come when there will be no water and by extension no life, what then will be the value of the gold if there’s no life? And the misconception is that, it is not only the surface water that is affected but when it is polluted, it also affects the ground water. So you may think you will go for the ground water later but then, you will need to also treat it and that costs a lot of money. What we need as a country is to try and enforce the various policies and regulations that have been enacted. I think if we are able to do that we will save ourselves for the future with access to clean and safe water for ourselves and the generation to come “.
