It is a fact that there is no substitute for water, and it is the reason water sources need to be protected.
That has, unfortunately, not been the case in the country and even worldwide in the past few years. In Ghana, especially, many of our water sources have either dried up or been polluted through human activities.
Illegal mining, otherwise known as galamsey, deserves special mention for being the single most indulged in activity that has silted and polluted most of the country’s river bodies with chemicals and other impurities.
Not even the fight over the past few years by various governments has been able to nip the nefarious activity in the bud, and it is a shame to us all that we have not been able to stop the wanton destruction of our rivers and streams: the sources of potable water.
Statistics show that our rivers – Pra, Ankobra, Birim, Densu, Offin and Oti, among others, have all been so polluted that it has become very difficult and expensive to treat water from those sources to pipe to communities.
Recently, when the country commemorated World Rivers Day, which falls on the fourth Sunday of September every year, the Water Resources Commission (WRC) said each Ghanaian had lost about 400 cubic metres (400,000 litres) of water between 2016 and 2025 due to increased water stress experienced by the country. This must alarm everyone.
Over the period, the WRC said the amount of water per head had dropped from 1,900 cubic metres (1.9 million litres) to 1,500 cubic metres (1.5 million litres).
The Head of Policy, Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation (PPRME) at the WRC, Dr Mawuli Lumor, who described the level of devastation going on in the water bodies as alarming, warned that urgent measures were needed to immediately halt the pollution of rivers caused by illegal miners, to prevent an imminent crisis.
"If we do not take action now, we will drop below 1,000 cubic metres per head in the next 10 years, and get to the situation where the government will come in to regulate the amount of litres of water one can take in a day," he stated.
If we must avert the disaster that looms, then we must heed the clarion call from Dr Lumor and do all that it takes to preserve what is left of our water sources.
While we laud the government for the steps it has taken so far to stop the destruction of our water bodies by illegal miners, such as declaring all water bodies security zones and unleashing the National Anti-Illegal Mining Operations Secretariat (NAIMOS) on illegal miners, which has made some arrests and destroyed some equipment used to pollute the water bodies, we ask that a multi-pronged approach be adopted to nip the problem in the bud.
We ask that the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) be resourced to join in the fight, and our schoolchildren be educated on the dangers and negative impact of illegal mining in their civic and social studies.
Much has not been heard about the River Guards since they were commissioned, and we urge that they be properly resourced and utilised to blow the whistle on people who destroy the environment and water sources through galamsey, so that once they are arrested, they are made to face the full rigours of the law.
Indeed, the commemoration of World Rivers Day on the theme: "Our rivers, our future", should inform us that if we destroy our rivers, there will be no future for us and our offspring, and the harmful galamsey practice will only continue to degrade freshwater ecosystems, poison rivers with mercury and heavy metals, and compromise our health and livelihoods.
We couldn’t agree more with the Chief of Atwima Kwanwoma, Nana Amponsah Kwaa IV, who said at the WRD commemoration that the shutdown of some water treatment plants by the Ghana Water Company Limited because of the excessive pollution of rivers bore ample testimony to the need for prompt action in dealing with the galamsey menace.
We must all join in the fight to save our water sources, or else we will all die of thirst before we know it.
