The straight line distance between the two small towns which are furthest apart is approximately 475km. The average distances from the researcher’s base in the Northern
town of Tamale to the small towns in the Northern, Middle and Southern zones are 130km, 255km and 405km respectively. This gives an indication of the challenges faced by the researcher in making best use of the opportunity to investigate different
management models in all three zones of Ghana. The researcher also faced the
considerable task of making appropriate contacts with government and stakeholders in each location, without any national host for this research, in addition to identifying and recruiting local research assistants.
Overall, the research critically considered the different data collection strategies and the most useful and relevant methods were used, while minimising the challenges that they posed on collecting accurate data. In this chapter it has been demonstrated that the most appropriate procedures were followed in the sampling of towns and respondents, in the design and administration of data collection instruments, and that relevant tools were used in the analysis of data collected from the two fieldworks. All procedures have been justified and the needed evidence provided that those procedures have been followed. It was established during data collection that in order to gather reliable data the researcher needed to have some local knowledge of the area as the basis to check data collected by research assistants as some may attempt to fake data. Close monitoring and the use of key District Assembly staffs help to resolve some tendencies that would have biased the data to be collected. It was obvious that self-administered questionnaires are not
appropriate for all small towns visited.
In the next four chapters the author focuses on the analysis of the data collected from the two periods of fieldwork which are presented to reflect the main and sub-objectives of the research. It was thought that presenting the household demand data, the stage would have been set to investigate the management models. However in the view of the first main objective to investigate the management models whose understanding
generated the second main objective to investigate households’ demand for improved water, the author decided to present the results of the management models before the household demand. The three main management models are presented in separate chapters to enable analysis of each model, to develop further understanding and to check if there are any differences or trends within the management models. Chapter
Four therefore analyses data on the community managed model, including the District Assembly managed model as explained earlier, Chapter Five presents the private operator managed systems and Chapter Six focuses on the public utility systems.
Chapter Seven analyses the household data required to determine effective demand for these water supply services.
CHAPTER FOUR
4 Performance of community managed water supply systems in small towns in Ghana
4.1 Introduction
In Chapter One, four different management models in operation in small towns water supply in Ghana were discussed. This chapter presents the results of the investigation of the performance of the three community-managed water supply systems, and the only District Assembly managed system, to establish any trends and to compare the operators to find out if there are any significant differences within the community managed
model. As there is no other District Assembly managed system to compare with the Damongo (in the North of Ghana), the research compares its performance with the community managed systems. Chapter Five and Chapter Six present the results of the investigation of the contracted private operators and the public utility managed systems respectively. The results obtained are from data collected during fieldwork in 2007 &
2008. The community-managed systems investigated are Asiakwa in the East, Bole and Salaga in the North. The three community managed systems are examples of delegated system of management discussed in Chapter Two. The District Assembly as the local government authority transferred the provision of water supply service function to the WSDB in line with the NCWSP guidelines discussed in Chapter One.
In this chapter, based on literature, the distinguishing features of the community managed models to be confirmed or otherwise alongside any new discoveries include the following:
• Management of the water supply systems are carried out by community committees or their appointed operators (Bolt ad Fonseca, 2001). In selecting
community members to operate water supply services in the true community managed systems, the community on their own and due to the communal type of living, identifies reliable and committed community members as committee members or operators who usually are volunteers and do not require any payments for their work thereby reducing the cost of manpower employed.
• Community participation and consultative processes are used to arrive at decisions regarding water supply projects (Lockwood, 2004; Harvey and Reed, 2006).
In a true community managed service provision in the context of rural Ghana through participation and consultative processes, issues such as payments for services and community contribution are carried out with knowledge of economic and social stature of community members. Payments or contributions are not made uniformly, with the wealthier households paying more than the poor. The poor are also made to make payments in the form of farm produce (both crops and livestock) which are sold and the money put into the water supply savings accounts or they offer labour as their
contributions or payments. In some rare cases wealthier households make payments or contributions for the poor.
• Accountability of system managers to the entire community (Bolt and Fonseca, 2001) through regular community meetings.
4.1.1 Case studies context
Figure 4.1 Schematic Diagram of Asiakwa
Source of water (GW)
Asiakwa
Stream
KEY
Standpipe House pipe Well
House Source of
raw water (GW)
Figure 4.2 Schematic Diagram of Salaga
Figure 4.3 Schematic Diagram of Bole
Salaga
River and source of water Pond (SW) 7km away from town centre
KEY
House pipe Well
Bole
Source of water (GW) 3.5km from centre of town
House
KEY
Well Standpipe
Point source boreholes for public use
3km
Figure 4.4 Schematic Diagram of Damongo
The three towns under investigation, though their water supply systems are all community managed systems, operate under different contexts that influence their overall performance, including: the age of the system, size of system, source of raw water, income levels of customers, annual rainfall in the area and alternative sources of water as detailed in Table 4.1 and illustrated in Figures 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 above. It should be noted that all the schematic diagrams are not drawn to scale and positions of the various items are illustrative for the readers’ quick understanding of the situation in the towns.
Damongo
KEY
Point source boreholes for public use
Mechanised boreholes connected to Standpipe Well
Table 4.1 Context information for the community managed water supply towns
Context Information Asiakwa Bole Salaga Damongo
*Projected population (2008) 10,030 10,376 21,000 18,153
*Population growth rate 2.1% 2.4% 2.2% 0.9%
Average household size 4.7 (0.413) Average per capita income (US$/annum) $551.29
(197.24) Number of stand pipes 2005
2006 Topography Undulating Fairly flat Fairly flat Fairly flat
**Average annual Rainfall (mm) 1,500 1,100 1,275 1,144 Year of commencement of project 2003 1996 2000 2005 The figures in parenthesis represent the standard error of the mean and the minimum and maximum figures recorded. *Source: 2000 Population and housing census. ** Source: http://ghanadistricts.com (accessed 26/03/09). Note: GW = Ground water and SW = Surface Water.
In Salaga, where surface water is the source of the raw water, a treatment plant was built and chemicals have to be purchased continuously for treating the water, thereby adding to both the investment and recurrent operational expenses of the Salaga system. Any comparison of the financial performance of the Salaga, Asiakwa, Damongo and Bole systems must be viewed within the context that Asiakwa, Damongo and Bole systems rely on groundwater sources which do not require extra treatment.
The water supply systems in Bole and Salaga were projects of the Ghana Assistance Project (GAP), a Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) sponsored project in Ghana, which had a different implementation strategy from the European Union (EU) funded Asiakwa water system. The GAP water projects implemented in the north were the first ‘small towns water supply projects’ in Ghana. All subsequent interventions, such as the EU projects, learnt from the GAP experiences, therefore avoiding the implementation lapses of the GAP projects. The Asiakwa project therefore benefited from lessons from Bole and Salaga. The current Damongo water system is an
3The large maximum figures are because some household heads teach the Qur’an and the pupils live with them till their completion and this could take several years and also because polygamy is part of the culture of the people in the towns.
emergency system provided by the EU which relies on a limited pipe network system, where boreholes are mechanised and connected to an overhead tank as shown in Figure 7.3. The emergency water supply scheme became necessary when the water system, rehabilitated in 1996 at a total cost of CD$ 753,012.43 (USD PPP$913,404.08) (GWCL, 2000), could no longer supply water to the town because of the drying up of the water source between 2004 and 2005.
By regional averages, per capita income for the Northern Region where Bole, Damongo and Salaga are located is US$322 and that of the Eastern Region where Asiakwa is located is US$412 (GSS, 2008). These average incomes compared with the fieldwork data captured in Table 4.1 show some similarity and therefore can be relied upon. GPRS I & II classify the three northern regions of Ghana as the poorest in the country (NDPC, 2005).
The climatic condition of the northern region is described as ‘Guinea Savannah’ with one rainy season and a prolonged dry season, while the eastern region is considered
‘Deciduous Forest’ with two rainy seasons and a shorter dry season (He et al., 2007).
The rainfall regime affects the availability of water to consumers in the alternative sources. In each of the four towns there are multiple alternative sources of water which are free for use by consumers. These include streams, tanks and wells. As one example, historically, Salaga was a slave market during the transatlantic slave trade and every house had a well to store water for cleaning their slaves before taking them to the market square. Till today every house still has a well in Salaga but this time storing water for only household use especially in the rainy season. The use of the wells during the rainy season has been attributed to the low revenues the system operator generates in the rainy season in Salaga as consumers deny using the tap water.
In this chapter and in all subsequent ones, household connections refer to both single house (yard) taps and plumbed household connections. In general most dwellings in small towns in Ghana are compound houses which contain multiple households as shown by the household data in Chapter Seven with a higher than the national average
of 1.7 households per house (GSS, 2008). In these compound houses a single tap typically serves all the residents of the various households.
Bole, Damongo and Salaga are the administrative capitals of their District Assemblies and are therefore the most economically vibrant towns in the districts as they act as service centres for the surrounding rural communities (Hinderink and Titus, 2002).
Asiakwa on the other hand is not a district capital but is located 16 km from the district capital and on the major highway passing through that capital.
On governance of the management models, Asiakwa, Bole and Salaga whose water systems are implemented through the NCWSP and whose guidelines were discussed in Chapter One, were supposed to be similar in their operations but the research found that this is not the case. The District Assembly managed model in Damongo on the other hand is not being implemented through the NCWSP and therefore does have a WSDB in the town.
In Asiakwa, the DWST, who were supposed to oversee and monitor the operations of the water system on behalf of the District Assembly, indicated they did not know about what was going on in the town regarding their water supply, based on key-informant interviews. A number of reasons could be ascribed to this situation. All the members who are based in the District capital are new in the District as the old ones who received training were all transferred to other districts by their Regional Managers. In Bole the situation is an improvement over the case of Asiakwa as the DWST are based in the town and can easily be contacted but almost all the time are focused on the water supply in the rural communities. They believe that the WSDB is experienced enough to
manage the systems without any supervision. In Salaga though the DWST is in the same town they play virtually no role in the water supply delivery and do not seem to know how the operators are performing. In these three small towns monitoring and
supervision of the operations of the water systems by the DWST appear therefore to be very weak but in Asiakwa the consultants who supervised the construction are those that are in charge of monitoring and supervision an arrangement that is outside the NCWSP strategy. In Bole the District Assembly in 2006 begun to show increased interest in the
water supply situation and that is in the right direction but, instead of the executive arm of the assembly directly doing the work, the DWST which represents the District Assembly should have been supported to perform that duty. The operations of the District Assembly managed model in Damongo are carried out by the DWST with no monitoring and supervision from the District Assembly. However, of significant importance, the maintenance of the systems is still being supervised by the EU consultants who were responsible during construction.
In terms of tariff setting, operators in all three towns under the NCWSP were expected to consult the communities in the process and the levels presented to the District
Assembly for approval in line with the guideline and as captured in Table 1.3. However none of the operators consulted their communities in setting tariffs. On a single
occasion the operator in Asiakwa presented their revised tariff to the District Assembly for approval but the other two towns have never presented their tariffs for approval. The operator in Damongo has not set their own tariff yet as the current one is that set by the consultants at the completion of the water project.
In line with the NCWSP guidelines the three community-managed water systems were to present operational reports twice a year to the communities as shown in Table 1.3 but in Salaga no such meetings or any kind are held with the community. In Asiakwa meetings are called only when it is necessary to pass some specific information such as interruptions to the people and not as required and in Bole only in 2006 that there was the need for a meeting as discussed further in the chapter. No meetings are organised in the community by the operator in Damongo.
On reporting of performance, in Asiakwa the consultants prepared a form for the operator to fill in all financial and operational data on daily basis in each month. These are available on files, with similar forms used in Bole but in this case prepared by the CWSA. The operator in Salaga does not follow any format in presenting performance reports but their daily operational records are kept on plain A4 sheets and receipts and bank records are retained. The operator in Damongo keeps proper records of their bank records and receipts of all expenditures and the vendors have daily recording note books
for water sales and volumes of water pumped and sold. The operator in Asiakwa sends biannual reports to the Regional office of the CWSA in Koforidua (Eastern Regional Capital) by the supervision of the consultants. Bole and Salaga were also required to report their performances biannually to the CWSA regional office in Tamale (Northern Regional Capital) but this has not been done in any of the three years being
investigated. The CWSA has been mentioned as requesting for the reports in both Bole and Salaga but they do not submit such reports.
The chapter, focused upon the supply side, institutional approach to service delivery, is organised according to the following three sections:
• Section 4.2 presents the quality of service delivered by the service providers
• Section 4.3 presents the economic and financial performance of the service providers
• Section 4.4 presents the human resources and the organisation which include subjective capacity descriptors based on the author’s observations.
The investigations of service provider effectiveness and efficiency, with respect to the different management models, have included a review of the data over a three year period, to determine whether there are any observable trends in performance from any particular management model and to attempt to eliminate the effect of any ‘bad’ years where performance could have been unduly influenced by particular events such as droughts or floods, elections or recessions, breakdowns or sudden price increases.