Accessibility to water

There are 317 water points (boreholes/pipe-born) in the district and only 22% of the total population have access to this potable water whiles 78% fetch water from rivers, streams, wells and ponds. Most of the water sources are polluted and infested with water born diseases. They are therefore unsafe for drinking except the boreholes and pipe born.

Out of the 317 water points, 265 are boreholes whiles the remaining 52 are pipe born. For the 265 boreholes in the district, 190 were recorded in eight of the Town/Area Councils. Assessing the water situation in the district, it was revealed that 78% of the entire population depends on streams, rivers, wells and ponds which are not sate for drinking. On the other hand, out of 22% of the total populations who have access to safe drinking water 21.5% depend on pipe born water whiles the remaining 78.5% also use borehole. There is the need therefore to provide additional boreholes to the people in the district. This is shown on the table below. 

The average time spent to access water in the district is 25 minutes.  This therefore means more human hours need to be water before accessing water.    On the other hand, the waiting time for Sabiye and Menji are councils are 58 minutes and 26.9 minutes respectively. This implies that human hours which are suppose to be use in productive ventures is being wasted to fetch water.  This also means, poverty will be high in the area councils.

The current data for the district indicates that, 45% of the entire population walks less than 50 metres to access water from water facility.  Also 46% walk between 51 metres – 1 kilometre to access water and 7.6% move between 1.1 kilometres – 2 kilometres to access water facility. This implies that there is the need to provide more potable water to increase easy accessibility for most of the people in the district. 

The buckets of water use in a day for week day are 15 while 12 buckets of water are use in a week end. The average cost of bucket of water in the district is ¢120.  The cost of bucket of water in the district ranges between ¢180 to ¢60.  It was also seen that 91.2% of the entire population of the district says they are able to pay for an average cost of ¢120 per bucket of water whiles the remaining 8.8% says they are not able to pay for the charges. 

52.9% of the total population in the district says the water facilities in the district are not adequate whiles 47.1% of the remaining population says, it is adequate. With the critical look of the situation it shows that, Debibi, Menji, Banda, and Sabiye Area Councils have higher number of respondents who says the water facilities are not adequate.  It therefore indicates the need for additional potable water points in the district.

The survey revealed the reasons for inadequacy of potable water in communities and some of the reasons include the following;

• Some communities are unable to pay for counterpart fund for the drilling of boreholes in their communities

• Boreholes not functioning

•  High population leading to pressure on the available boreholes pipe burns and waiting for more minutes and hours

Sanitation

Sanitation in the district revealed that 70% of the total population use open dumping as their system of disposing off solid waste in their communities. Also 27.9% dispose off their solid waste indiscriminately while 2% use the public container. Apart from Nsawkaw, the district capital, which has 16.12% of the population having access to public container, the rest of the people in the district dispose off solid waste either indiscriminately or open dumping system. 

This implies that if pragmatic measures are not taken to manage waste disposal effectively, there will be an increase in diseases which come as a result of untidy environment such as malaria, cholera, diarrhea, etc in the future. 64.3% of the total population in the district use pit latrine while 30.4% use KVIP.  On the other hand, 5.3% of the people also use septic tank to dispose off their human waste.  This data shows that majority of the population depend on pit latrine which is not safe since it breeds mosquitoes and spread malaria, and unsafe for human life.

The district cannot boast of water closet type of toilet because of lack of pipe born water in most of the communities.  Through Nsawkaw, Badu and Seikwa have access to pipe born water, since it is not extended to most of the houses, people are not in position to water closet in their houses.  However, some few private residences in Nsawkaw town have the facility in their homes. 52.7% of the entire population disposes off their liquid waste in drains whiles 47.3% dispose off theirs indiscriminately and to open spaces. This implies that appropriate measures like regular cleaning of gutters/drains in the district must be encouraged to avoid a situation where water get stag in the gutters which intern breeds mosquitoes.