Where's the political will to protect our rivers?

During a recent visit to my native Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region, I decided to take a stroll along the banks of River Goa to see the state of the river.

It had been more than 30 years since I last entered the river, from which I had drunk as a child, and it was a delight to be back to my roots.

Goaso took its name after the River Goa. During my childhood, residents of the town, especially the youth, used to swim in the river on Sundays and it was always refreshing to join my friends to swim.

In those times, Wednesdays were sacred days when people were prevented from going to the riverside to undertake any activity. We were told the river goddess with two long breasts permanently lying in a pot of gold could strike anyone who visited the river on the sacred day.

Those were stories clothed with mysticism. However, what was striking was that the traditional authorities were able to protect the cleanliness of the river.

As I walked along the banks, I realised the river had not seen the pollution that has characterised many rivers in the country, especially in our cities.

Parts of the banks are still green and the water looked clean. The Omanhene of Goaso, Nana Kwasi Bosomprah, has put in measures to ensure that no one polluted the river and it appears to be working.

If traditional authorities can institute measures in these modern times to protect rivers, what stops our political leaders from enforcing existing laws to save our rivers from dying?

Unfulfilled promises

Successive governments have made unfulfilled promises to keep the environment clean and the results have not been pleasant.

It is said, and I believe same to be true, that Ghana has one of the finest environmental laws but the political will to enforce them is always a problem.

In January 2014, a revised National Environmental Policy of Ghana was produced. The overall goal of the policy was to provide strategic direction for policy makers and Ghanaians to travel the path of a clean environment but typical of the country, implementation of the policy has hugely remained on paper.

Our mining laws frown on mining in water bodies. Ghana is a signatory to the Minamata Convention which commits the country to reduce hazardous chemicals and harmful pollutants in water bodies and in the air.

 But what do we see? Many of our major rivers have been polluted by illegal miners, as our political leaders looked on, until recently when the new government decided to take action.

The natural courses of most rivers and streams have been diverted and in some cases blocked to give way for illegal mining.

 In the local areas, especially the metropolises, authorities have looked on while the main rivers are polluted through human activities. As political heads of the assemblies, city mayors fear some of their actions could have dire consequences in an election period, and ,therefore, lacked the courage to take action to save the situation.

Accra and Kumasi worse

Today, in Kumasi, three of the major rivers that traversed the city – Sesan, Aboabo and Subin -  are nothing to write home about. They have been seriously polluted.

In a study on the “Anthropogenic Pollution of Inland Waters: the Case of the Aboabo River in Kumasi”, published in the Journal of Sustainable Development (November 2011) it revealed that the river was polluted and ,therefore, not suitable for domestic consumption.

In my job as correspondent for the Daily Graphic in Kumasi for more than a decade, I was aware some people downstream were still drinking from the river. Those were people who did not know anything about any study that revealed the pollution of the river and were thus exposed to all kinds of diseases.

For other communities that depended on the river and knew of the dangerous state of the river, they were deprived of their source of drinking water.

In Accra, the Odaw River that flows from Abokobi and Adjankote hills cutting through Ashongman, Atomic Energy area, West Legon, Achimota, Alajo, Avenor, Agbogbloshie and empties in the Atlantic Ocean, is dead. The river is constantly filled with garbage and there is no aquatic life in it.

I read somewhere (although yet to be verified) that in China, the communist government has made it mandatory for the head of every local government unit to take a swim in the rivers in their locality as a show of commitment to protect the rivers.

The law may seem draconian but if we can introduce it in Ghana, it will go a long way to ensure clean watercourses because no “ big man” would want to swim in a dirty river.

With the rains setting in, the threat of flooding  in Kumasi and Accra looms because the rivers are choked.

Galamsey fight encouraging

We are being told that the Pra River in the Central Region has shown signs of improvement six months after the start of the fight against galamsey. This is a good sign and the government can only be encouraged to pursue the fight against illegal mining until it is eventually won.

The river was polluted by some illegal miners who mined in it and on its banks, turning the colour of the water into dark brown.

Our political leaders must walk the talk to save our rivers. We cannot continue to look on while our rivers are attacked with impunity because the development has serious health implications for the people.