Borehole controversy

During my first visit to Aframano in November 2017, I had given my WhatsApp number to some of the people I had met there. The mechanised borehole was completed in March 2019. Everything seemed to have been a great success, but in June 2019 one of the people in Aframano sent me a WhatsApp message that was disturbing.

"Because of corruption, most of the people prefer fetching water from the streams around instead of the portable water you and your people gave us," he wrote.

I was devastated by the news, and worried that my efforts and my donors' money had been spent in vain. Ashanti Development's operations manager Nicholas tried to reassure me that this was not the case. Aframano is a remote village and it may take time for people to get used to the way the water system works. A water committee has been appointed by the village elders, and everyone had the opportunity to speak out against any member. The appointed members had no opposers. The purpose of the water committee is to collect the funds for for buying the diesel (and eventually, the electricity, when it is connected). Water is sold at 0.2 Ghana cedis (4 pence) for a 20 litre container, which is the same price as all the mechanised boreholes we have commissioned.

My first thought was that the problem was with mechanisation. Perhaps it was a mistake to provide such a sophisticated system, that would have high running costs. Perhaps a simple hand-operated borehole, such as the one they originally had in Aframano, would have been better. But I've become convinced that mechanisation can work well in Ashanti.

The problem is that it is hard sufficiently strengthen the village institutions to be able to manage the funds effectively and fairly. It takes time. The way Ashanti Development approaches that is to encourage them to form the water committee with a trusted person as chair and another one as treasurer. The village chief and the Assemblyman are not members of the water committee, so that they can help resolve disputes that the committee itself can't resolve. It's all about transparency, and checks and balances.

In Aframano, my informant's issue was that there had been a previous water committee operating the manual borehole. They had collected 2 GHC (about 30p) from each household per month, for a few years, and yet they appeared not to be able to repair the manual bore hole. When we set up the new water committee, Nicholas had told them that a condition was that it must consist of new people that were not on the old committee, and there must be public consultation so that anyone could raise objections to any names. So we think the new water committee is better.

By talking to a lot of people during my visit in January 2020, I have become persuaded that the new water committee is likely to be successful in the long term.

Meeting with Martha (kindly translating), me,
Nanna Pommah and Benedicta Traa

I met three members of the new water committee, and discussed the way they operate it. I talked to the chair, Nana Pommah, and the treasurer, Benedicta Traa. Later, I separately met with another member, Yaw Sanbour Byen (aka Addea Nimah). They said that they charge 20 GHp (3 UK pence) per 20 litre can, which is enough to pay for the diesel, but not enough to build a fund for repairs. When the village is connected to the electricity, the running cost will be lower, so they expect to be able to start the repair fund then. The 20 GHp price is standard among the villages in which we have worked, so I think the water committee is charging the right amount. They reported that they did have some breakdowns during the first year of operation. They estimated that there were six or seven, and each one lasted about three days. People would have had to go to the stream during this time. In one of the incidents, there had been heavy rain and wind, and the lid of the tank had opened a bit, allowing a bird to get in. The bird hadn't been able to escape, and contaminated the water. They drained down the tank and washed the inside.

I asked again to speak to Cecelia, to whom I had spoken when I visited Aframano after the latrines had been built. She had told me about her latrine. Now I asked her about the water. She confirmed what I had heard. She thought the price was fair, and preferred to get the borehole water at GHp 20 instead of the stream water. She also told me about the bird incident.

I wanted to meet Matthew, whom I had met in December 2017 and again in February 2018, but he had moved to senior school outside the village and wasn't there. So I met three more children, in one-to-one meetings, and I asked them the same questions ("pipe" means borehole, and "spoiled" means not working):

• Do you live in Aframano (or, instead, a neighbouring village)? 
• Do you fetch water for your family? Does your family use the water from the pipe, or do you go to the stream? 
• Are you always able to obtain borehole water on the days you want it? How often is the pipe spoiled?

Meeting with Joshua

Joshua (16) lives in Aframano, fetches water for his family, says the borehole is not working once per month. Thomas (14) says he fetches water three times a day, carrying the jerrycan on his head. He says the borehole doesn't work twice a month. I asked him who fixes it. A man comes from Mampong (20km), he said. Kailtus (16) has four brothers and three sisters, and the whole family moved to Aframano from Ghana western region about 10 years ago. He gave me similar answers.

Finally, I met with the person that originally sent me the WhatsApp message. I'm not revealing any details about that person, because I don't want to compromise him. His main point is that he wants Ashanti Development to supervise the water committee while it is learning how to perform its role. That is already in hand. Nicholas visits every couple of months, without announcement. And I intend to go on visiting every year.

Indeed, the manual pump had been repaired

My informant also asked me to find out what happened to the money the previous water committee had collected. That seemed hard for me to do, but as I am now on friendly terms with the Assemblyman I gently brought it up while we were walking together. "They did repair the borehole. Don't you remember you drank from it?" Yes, I remembered, but I hadn't realised that was their work. I thought Ashanti Development had done that.  But in fact it was the community by themselves. After we started working on the latrines, the community had got the borehole pump repaired. Then two weeks after, the mechanism had broken again. By that time, we had already begun to work on fitting an electric pump, so we didn't repair the manual mechanism again.

Perhaps ironically, the highest praise I heard for the borehole and latrine project came from my WhatsApp informant. During our discussion, he mentioned in passing that he had noticed that classroom attendance at school had improved noticeably, because children's health was much better due to the latrines and borehole. I stopped him and asked him to repeat that. Yes, he said, there has been a huge improvement in village health now that people are not defecating in the bush and have clean water to drink. I had heard this story about how toilets and clean water improves health many times, but always second hand, or third hand, from other volunteers or people associated with our NGO. This was my first time to hear it from someone within a village, the village I had fundraised for, and to hear it without needing an interpreter.