My Drinking Water From Your Latrine

*By Jean Lukaz

When I touched down four years ago and questioned why people buy sachet water instead of drinking the ‘pure’ borehole alternative in the absence of piped water, little did I reckon that my secondary school science knowledge may be flawed. The water meters in Taifa-Burkina were just part of the exterior décor of houses and quite unlike the poisoned gas taps and showers in the Nazi camps, the taps in the area bill you for pure air…

Borehole water in Apatrapa, near Kumasi is not as salty as the same source of water at Taifa near Accra. And if you happen to live on a flat land, on top of a hill, on a slope, or in a valley, your borehole water may taste different depending on what soil-related activities are taking place on the land right up or next to you.

Drinking ‘pure’ KVIP Water?

Due to the lack of treated water supply in Honourable-Reverend-Professor Mike Ocquaye’s Taifa constituency almost one in five houses own a quasi-permanent water supply from below in the form of borehole wells that are used for both domestic and commercial purposes. At the same time, those that are thrifty have found ingenious ways of cutting down on the cost of water use by building an ‘Advanced KVIP’- a latrine with a WC on top I presume... in place of a water-run WC. The borehole water in this area is by no means tastier and salty due to the probable impurities it contains. My argument here may have no scientific basis but commonsense is all the ordinary consumer needs to be able to examine any situation that affects their status quo.

Soak away…

Cost-cutters have found old ways more beneficial and have resorted to the ‘soak away’ method of draining their domestic sewage. Outflows from the kitchen, bathroom and more recently, the toilets have all been directed to the soak away for onward seepage into underground water neighbouring borehole water systems. It may be cheaper avoiding the sucking costs of the Yafurus, Zoomlions, Jogmas, etc, but the deliberate recycling of toilet water for borehole purposes is definitely going to yield results…possibly bigger balls than the strange disease that has reared its ugly head in some villages in the country.

In as much as almost all the residents of Taifa buy clean or contaminated sachet water for drinking, cooking, cleaning, dishwashing and bathing are all done with borehole water. Pray that you never go broke if you are resident in the community, or you may be forced to drink some of the borehole stuff. Boiling before you drink is advisable but what if you cannot afford the extra energy cost?

Does the advanced-KVIP next door to or on the premises of a borehole water seller ring a bell? And some of these benevolent businessmen have attached pure water factories to their ‘pure’ wells and are selling the obvious.

Consumer Rights

This piece may sound provocative but the supply of drinking water is a consumer right as well as the provision of sanitation facilities to communities. And if my knowledge of languages serves me any purpose, Aqua-whatever-Vitens has definitely got something to do with water, precisely piped water supply in Ghana with rumored jurisdiction over underground water supply from KVIPs and soak aways as well.

There is tension between water as a scarce economic resource and access to water as a human right. The right to the satisfaction of basic needs, the right to safety and the right to a healthy environment are consumer rights all related the provision of water and sanitation services by the government. Safe water is crucial for life and health, its availability and affordability for the entire population are of enormous welfare and political importance.

 Cost

There are much higher costs of water for unconnected people compared to those with piped supply. A sachet of half-litre drinking water costs 300 cedis, equivalent to the cost of 10 litres of borehole water in Taifa: 20 times the quantity. In some areas of Accra, it costs even more and many have franchised the work of the Aqua-whatever-Vitens Ghana Water Company by blocking a whole neighbourhood’s piped water supply for their monopoly Russian-style.

Are we worried?

Published in Public Agenda on 16th April 2007: www.ghanaweb.com/public_agenda

*The author is a Consumer Advocate and he can be reached at Http://www.theconsumerpartnership.org