Ghana Water Institute Board inaugurated
The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, has inaugurated the first Governing Board of the Ghana Water Institute (GWI) to oversee the operations of the institute.
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The five-member board has been entrusted to complement the government’s Water for All Agenda, which is aimed at ensuring adequate supply of water across the country.
Chaired by the Managing Director (MD) of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL), Dr Clifford Braimah, the board has been charged to support the government’s effort by improving institutional capacity, promoting multi-sectoral approaches to offer solutions to water resource management in the country and the sub-region.
The other members of the board are the Rector of the GWI, Dr Zulkarnein Nashiru; the Deputy MD of GWCL in charge of Finance and Administration, James Abbey; the Chief Manager in charge of Operations, Richard Appiah Otoo; and a representative of the GWCL Board, Vida Duti.
The Sanitation Minister later toured the facilities of the institute and also familiarised with the Institute’s model of operations.
Governing Board
Ms Dapaah commended the GWCL and the GWI for their collaborative efforts in transforming the institute, formerly known as the Ghana Water Training School, into a centre of excellence for water supply education in the West African sub-region.
She also applauded them for working to gain accreditation from the Commission for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (CTVET), and positioning the institute to run programmes on the National Proficiency Platform.
Ms Dapaah entreated the board to support the regulation of services provided by private sector operators to bring sanity into the water space, and to also serve as an additional revenue generation stream for the management of the institute.
Centre of Excellence
The Sanitation Minister acknowledged the role of the Governing Board of the GWI in achieving the Water for All Agenda, and called on the members to bring up solutions to promote good water resource management in the sub-region.
She expressed confidence in the ability of the board to manage and nurture the institute into the desired centre of excellence, and urged the members to work as a team to realise the aspirations of the institute.
She urged the management of the school to include general courses such as in Finance, Human Resource, and Communications into the curriculum.
“The students should be taken through courses on current affairs so that they can come out with a broad knowledge of this country and the water sector,” she said.
Mr Braimah, speaking on behalf of the board, promised to work diligently to ensure that the certificates issued by the institute were recognised internationally.
“We are collaborating with external agencies, and also in talk with the World Bank and partners in Netherlands to achieve our objectives.
“Also, due to the current status of the institute, the Africa Water Institutions want to use the GWI facilities to train water professionals in the African region,” he added.
Dr Nashiru said the institute was one of a kind in West Africa, stressing that it would start running Higher National Diploma (HND) programmes on Technical and Vocational Education and Training in September this year.
