Ghana: donors urged to help prevent corruption in the water sector

Published on: 05/12/2011

 

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has appealed to donor agencies to introduce anti-corruption policies and tools in all their water sector activities. This was one of the recommendations of Ghana’s National Water Supply Integrity Study [1] undertaken by GII as part of the Transparency and Integrity in Service Delivery in Africa (TISDA) programme funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The GII study mentions not only petty corrupt practices like illegal connections and illegal payments to meter readers, but also instances where a single contractor bought and priced all bidding documents.

GII has been holding meetings throughout the country to advocate for more transparency and accountability in the water sector. Priority actions identified by GII are:

• overcoming the high level of inequity in water service access and user tariffs
• strengthening independent regulation to cover secondary providers (water vendors) and the rural water sector
• benchmarking and greater transparency in the development of new water supply services
• legalising and strengthening Water and Sanitation Development Board (WSDBs) and Water and Sanitation (WATSAN) Committees

TISDA is a three-year (2008-2011), seven-country programme implemented by Transparency International, covering primary education (Cameroon and South Africa), the health sector (Uganda and Zambia), and the water sector (Kenya, Ghana and Senegal).

[1] Denkabe, A. (ed). (2011). Ghana’s national water supply integrity study : mapping transparency, accountability & participation in service delivery : an analysis of the water supply sector in Ghana. Accra, Ghana, Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII).

Related web sites:

• Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) – TISDA
• TISDA Kenya
• Transparency International – TISDA
• Water Integrity Network

Source: GNA, Ghana Business News, 14 Nov 2011 ; NNN-GNA, NAM News Network, 24 Sep 2011