Water comes into Kwahu-Tafo in four ways:

 

• Rain
• Piped by Ghana Water Board from the Volta Lake
• River Bupru (so called by the earliest Tafo people, onomatopoeically, after the sound of its stream water bubbling over rocks)
• Wells

 

Rain

 

Rainwater arrives principally in one major rainy season per year (mid-March to the end of August, and a shorter one from mid-November through mid-December). People harvest it to a certain extent in old oil drums, but damaged roofs make collection difficult and the water unclean.

 

Piped from the Volta Lake

 

A pipeline runs up to the Kwahu Ridge from the Volta Lake where a purification and pumping plant is sited at the small fishing village of Kotoso. This pipe reaches Kwahu-Tafo as one of the first of many Kwahu towns. The pipe is leaky and is due for a refurbishment by the Ghana Water Board, when it is said it may also be put underground. In Tafo as in other towns a water tower acts as a reservoir for this piped supply, and water is dispensed from it by metered pipe to households which can afford it. Most people can�t, and access the supply only through standpipes, where a bucket of drinkable water costs a few pesewas. It is difficult to maintain a system of good repair and money collection at these points, and many of them fail: and many people prefer to drink well water, of varying degrees of impurity, rather than pay.

 

Footnote:

Humphrey Barclay attended a recent event when the Chief and Elders of Kwahu-Tafo went to Kotoso to hold a Traditional Faith ceremony at the edge of the water to appease the gods of the lake who were angry at the people's pollution of it. This was to be simultaneous with a District Assembly campaign to persuade people to clean up their act. Belt and braces!

 

 

River Bupru

 

The msal river which runs through the town is badly silted and clogged and overgrown with vegetation, some of which has been planted as vegetable crops. In the wet season it floods badly, spreading contaminated water into low-lying households, and holding water in stagnant pools which breed mosquitoes.

 

In September 2008 Greencare H20 (click here) announced its intention of funding the KTDC's entire cost of dredging it, for cleanliness, amenity-value, eventual fish-farming, and to increase the flow over the waterfall Butuase which drops into a gorge at the north-east edge of the town and with its spectacular natural rock cave offers prospect for a tourism trade.

 

Wells

 

Households generally get their water form wells, which range in quality from good to poor.  The good ones are properly built and maintained, with cement walls, surrounds, roofs and covers. A considerable amount of FOT funding has assisted in the refurbishment of 8 wells over the last five years.

 

 

 

 

There are others in poor condition - often used because they are nearer to homes - which range form built-but-dilapidaterd (even snake-infested!) to muddy holes in the ground. The latter are often near the river.  Since this supply is free, some households use it as drinking water.  Typically, early each morning children will be sent before school to collect several (very heavy!) buckets each for the home's use during the day.

 

 

Greencare H2O is planning a wholesale clean-up of the town's wells, and is looking to add Pumps and bore-holes to achieve its ambition of free clean drinking water for all.

 

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