Coca-Cola Company inaugurates Ablekuma WaterHealth Centre
The Coca-Cola Company has partnered three companies to deliver safe water for residents of Ablekuma in Accra.
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It followed the inauguration of the Ablekuma WaterHealth Centre, which is the result of a partnership between Coca-Cola, Diageo Plc, Kosmos and WaterHealth.
The partnership is under the Safe Water for Africa Initiative, which is aimed at giving clean, potable water to people on the continent.
The commissioning of the WaterHealth Centre was in line with this year’s World Water Day Celebration on the theme: ‘‘Better Water, Better Jobs.’’
Benefits to 12 communities
The WaterHealth centres are small-scale water treatment plants – mini water works – that purify surface or ground water to levels recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
To ensure long-term sustainability of the projects, the partners normally engage the community by creating a water board, consisting of community leaders to supervise the facility.
The Operations and Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola Equatorial, Mr Anthony Chinebuah, said the company had funded the construction of 12 Water Health centres in the Greater Accra, Eastern, Ashanti, Western and Volta regions.
The move, he said, formed part of the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR).
He explained that it was in the interest of Coca-Cola to be involved in community development because without healthy sustainable communities, the company would not have a sustainable business.
Mr Chinebuah said the company’s philosophy was anchored on the premise that the success of the business was inextricably linked to the success of the communities in which it operated.
“It is, therefore, important to us to support the health and well-being of these communities as a means to support economic growth of these communities,” he explained.
Chief lauds initiative
The Business Head, WaterHealth Ghana, Mr Prashant Kulkarni, reiterated the company’s commitment to provide clean, safe and affordable drinking water to most of the regions of the country over the next few years.
He added that having spent over eight years in Ghana, the company had perfected the art of site selection, operation and maintenance and was at a threshold of executing a major scale up.
Madam Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, MP, Anyaa Sowutuom Constituency, lauded Coca-Cola for the facility and emphasised the point that its sustainability over the years depended on the people of the community.
Nii Larbi II, the Chief of Ablekuma, commended the company for the support and encouraged other companies to emulate the kind gesture of the Coca-Cola Company.
Meanwhile, the Coca-Cola Company, as part of its commitment to improving the lives of Ghanaians, especially those in deprived and vulnerable communities through the Coca-Cola Foundation, has committed US$30 million for the provision of safe, clean drinking water to communities in Africa, providing over 12.5 million litres of water to over 100,000 people in Ghana in 2012.