The Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), acting in partnership with ‘Friends of Rivers and Water Bodies’, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), have commenced an environmental awareness project to protect water bodies in the Kumasi Metropolis.
Mr. Osei Assibey-Antwi, the Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), said the project involved the planting of trees along water bodies and on wetlands, and called for media education to influence attitudinal change amongst the citizenry as regards practices that tended to pollute water bodies.
This fell in line the Assembly’s flagship initiative ‘Keep Kumasi Clean and Green’, a programme structured to enhance the biodiversity and ecology of the Metropolis.
Currently, about seven streams – ‘Wewe’, ‘Subin’, ‘Asuoyeboa’ and ‘Akose’, which served the water needs of most communities in the Ashanti Region, take their source from Kumasi.
Mr. Assibey-Antwi, speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Kumasi, on the sideline of the commemoration of this year’s World Water Day, said the livelihood of mankind depended on water and drew attention to the need for all stakeholders to join efforts at protecting streams and rivers in the Metropolis.
“Leaving No One Behind”, is the theme for this year’s Day.
The MCE indicated that the sustainable development goal six (6) advocated ‘Water for all by 2030’, and in response to this, the Assembly would not relent in protecting all water bodies for the benefit of the future generation.
Nana Dwomoh Sarpong, President of Rivers and Water Bodies, said the protection of water bodies was a necessity in view of the changing climatic conditions, which had led to the shrinking of rivers and streams globally.
“Today, billions of people are still living without safe water in their households, schools, workplaces, farms and factories,” he noted, stressing that this had brought in its wake hunger and other stressful conditions.
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