Except Ivory Coast and Mali, which provided regular and prompt payments, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Togo and Benin are indebted with some in three years arrears. “These countries pay when they want to pay. Right now, the VBA is poor and without money it cannot recruit more qualify experts,” Dr. Rafatou Fofana, a Hydrologist at the VBA, has said.

Dr. Fofana made this known when she addressed stakeholders in the Black Volta Sub-Basin in Wa, the Upper West Regional capital at an “information and awareness creation” meeting on Monday.  The meeting was to build the capacity of local stakeholders in the area of good water governance.

Dr Fofana said inadequate funding had affected the effective operations of the VBA, explaining: “The VBA has challenges in human and material resources”. The VBA needed Water Charter, to spell out rules and regulations clearers between the stakeholders and development partners.

Dr. Fofana said development partners were waiting for water charter and water strategic plan to engage with the VBA. She explained that for the VBA to become self-financial sustainable, countries sharing water resources of the Volta Basin should be prepared to pay for pollution and high volume water usage.

The VBA Hydrologist urged all stakeholders to cooperate and report all challenges facing the Volta Basin. “No country should create a project which would affect other beneficiary countries which also utilised the same water sources,” she advised. “All should be aware of opportunities and risks and other related challenges on the basin,” Dr. Fofana added.

The VBA was established in January 2007 by Heads of State of the six countries that share the Volta Basin to promote permanent consultation and sustainable development of the water and related resources of the Volta Basin for equitable distribution of benefits towards poverty alleviation and better socio-economic integration.