By Dennis Peprah
Abesim, (Bono), Jan. 31, GNA – The Abesim-Ankrana community in the Sunyani Metropolis will no longer share the ‘Ankrana stream’ with stray animals of dogs, pigs and cattle.
Besides, the perennial acute water shortages experienced during the dry seasons due to the drying up of the only water source in the community, has also become a thing of the past.
During a visit to the community by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the more than 600 residents, particularly women and girls, could not hide their joy, and took turns to commend the Absa Bank Ghana for putting up a mechanised borehole in the area to readily provide them with clean water.
The facility has three standing pipes and a reserve poly tank. However, the residents told the GNA in an interview that their only challenge now was the deplorable condition of the wooden bridge on the stream and poor drainage system.
The bridge, according to the women, always become a death trap for school children during the rainy seasons as the pupils found it extremely difficult to cross the stream.
Madam Mavis Afia, a resident and a petty trader said: “we are happy now; however, we are pleading with the government to reshape the road and improve the drainage system along the stream.”
“This is the actual road design to link Ankrana and Abesim and is very short too, but because of its condition now, we can’t use it for now”, Mr Seidu Abdulai, another resident farmer stated.
He told the GNA that the entire community would forever be grateful to President John Dramani Mahama if his government constructed or reshaped that particular road for use, worrying that successive governments had neglected the locals.
Mr Kingsley Kusi Appiah, the Assemblyman for the Abesim-Ankobea Electoral Area also told the GNA that he lobbied for the water project, which hitherto remained the pressing need for the community and thanked the Sunyani branch of Absa for the facility.
Meanwhile, Mrs Grace Anim-Yeboah, the Business Banking Director of Absa Bank, told the GNA that the construction of the facility was in line with the Bank’s corporate social responsibility programme to give back to society.
“We are not only doing the banking business, but also we commit to tackling the needs of local communities,” she stated and urged the people to take good care of the water facility.
Mr Augustine Gyan, the Sunyani branch Manager of Absa Bank, also re-echoed the readiness of the bank to tackle the social needs of the people and asked the community to maintain the facility.
GNA