2013 budget must include $400m water & toilet money – Journalists

President Mahama asked to fulfill promises made when he was veep

The Ghana Watsan Journalists Network (GWJN), a grouping of environmental journalists interested in WASH issues, will this year engage in strong budget advocacy to ensure government meets its financial commitments on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH).

To begin with, the group has asked the John Mahama administration to ensure that its first fiscal policy and budget statement includes a $400 million allocation for tackling challenges in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector.

The amount represents a promise made under the Mills administration when President John Dramani Mahama was Vice President.

The Mills administration pledged, at the first High Level Meeting on Sanitation and Water For All (SWA/HLM) which was held in Washington DC, United States in April 2010, to spend a minimum of $350 million on WASH interventions annually over a five-year period (2011-2015). This was later scaled up to $400 million in April 2012 at the second edition of the HLM.

It is not clear when the 2013 budget would be presented but many expect it to be put before the legislature in March by which time the new and substantive ministers would have taken office.

At simultaneous press conferences held in Accra and Kumasi on Tuesday, the GWJN acknowledged that a key goal of government is to accelerate progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) targets on sanitation as well as consolidating gains made on water, hence the pledges made to scale up funding.

In Accra, GWJN’s Deputy Coordinator, Edmund Smith-Asante, read the Network’s statement to members, indicating that “while these promises are good, their value comes from their fulfilment.  So we are watching and waiting to see the funds released.”

He added that “it is evident that positive resolution to the water, sanitation, and hygiene challenges are not for a want of ideas. There is no lack of good promises.  A key problem however, is that the promises remain unfulfilled.”

Supporting, Mr Ibrahim Musa, Head of Policy and Partnerships at WaterAid in Ghana (WAG), said: “The important thing is not just making declarations but backing the declarations with action,” adding that budget advocacy is crucial in ensuring that government delivered on its pledges.

He observed that there was still a daunting amount of work to be done in the WASH sector, particularly on sanitation. And even in the water sub-sector where tremendous progress has been made, various reports still “reveal areas of deprivation. The reality is that there are health facilities in this country which cannot function effectively because they do not have running water.”

Keep Your Promise

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s press conference was also meant to announce the GWJN as a partner in the Ghana chapter of the “Keep Your Promises on Sanitation and Water” campaign. The GWJN together with WAG and the Coalition of NGOs in Water and Sanitation (CONIWAS) form the campaign, which was launched in Ghana on World Toilet Day, observed on November 19, 2012. The 12-month campaign aims at bringing an end to unfulfilled promises relating to the provision of safe sanitation and clean water.
Published in the Public Agenda on Friday January 25, 2012.