Water shortage has hit Awe Senior High Technical School in the Kasena-Nankana East Municipal Assembly of the Upper East Region after the schools’ major source of water supply; a mechanized bore-hole broke down.
The situation has compelled students of the school to resort to walking to communities including Kajelo, Namolo and Saboro to search for water. This, students of the school has exposed them to various forms of dangers and takes a greater part of their time which could have been used for academic work.
Checks by Senyalah Castro Cazo found that the schools’ student population of about 1,500 now depends on a single manual bore hole on the school campus for water; this creates pressure on the facility which suffers frequent break downs.
The students also depend on a standby poly-tank which the school engages the services of tankers for the provision of water for the students. This comes with an extra cost for the school and it is unable to constantly meet the financial obligations of the agreement.
Headmaster of the school, Gariba Razak Ibrahim, who is worried about the impact the water shortage might have on the school, partly blames the reoccurring phenomenon on the inability of the engineers to locate the exact part of the campus where water abounds for tapping.
He said even though several drillings have gone into finding water for the school, a lot of the drilled sites dotted all over the campus have been abandoned due to the unavailability of water underground.
He further stated that the raise in school population is also a contributory factor to the challenge. He revealed that the school has not received any additional bore holes to augment the huge population the school recorded after its attainment of a boarding status in 2012.
He admits the school is in water crisis and needs urgent measures to address the challenge.
Meanwhile, the headmaster has revealed that engineers who visited the school to assess the level of water challenge marring the smooth run of the school on the instruction of the Upper East Regional Minister, Rockson Ayine Bukari, to find possible solutions have since not returned after their first visit.
Another group of engineers who were instructed by the Water and Sanitation Minister, Joseph Kofi Adda, who doubles as the Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central, in fulfillment of his promise to provide the school with portable drinking water and a toilet facility during the school’s 25th anniversary , have also not returned after their initial visit.
“Recently after our anniversary, they (Joseph Kofi Adda) said they had awarded contract to somebody to come and give us a community mechanized bore hole and a KVIP. The man came, we handed over the site to him and up to now he has not surfaced”
“The Regional Minister also promised giving us two bore holes, the contractors and those to sink the bore holes came and we showed them the place, they also went and never surfaced”. He continued.
It was also found that a mechanized bore hole which is about 85% percent complete has been abandoned by the contractor. The headmaster explained that the contractor left site three years ago and all efforts to at least get him hand over the unfinished project to school authorities for completion have been futile.
Mr. Razak Ibrahim hints of a latest discovery of water underground by a group of engineers from Accra. According to him, the engineers after a vigorous search have assured the school of constant water supply that will curb the problem. The headmaster is therefore appealing to government, NGOs and corporate entities to come to their aid with an intervention.
A1 Radio News|A1radioonline.com|Ghana.
