“Whilst government is committed to living up to its social responsibilities of investing in the water sector, the citizenry are expected to contribute their quota to ensuring the protection and sustainability of the water system,” she said.

Madam Dapaah made the call during the inauguration of the China Aided 1000 Borehole Project at Densuso, near Suhum, in the Eastern Region at the weekend.

The project is a 20-million-dollar grant funded by the Chinese Government under the Economic and Technical Cooperation Agreement signed between the two countries on December 15, 2015.

The project is expected to meet the demand of 500,000 people in the rural communities across 10 regions of Ghana. Jiangxi Zhongmei Engineering Construction, a Chinese Company, undertook the project.

The beneficiary regions included Upper East, 182 boreholes; Upper West, eight; Northern, 155, Brong Ahafo 146; Ashanti 28; Western 148; Eastern 162; Central 10; Volta 148 and Greater Accra 13.

Madam Dapaah said the Government would give its support to initiatives that would increase access to safe water and improve sanitation services to all Ghanaians towards the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 6).

She urged the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies to continue to educate the people on hygiene to avoid water contamination, adding that one of the challenges in the water and sanitation services is water quality right from the catchment to the point of use at the household.

“If services are falling into poor conditions as others are being constructed, the net growth towards reaching the SDG-Six targets slows down and good health and economic development is negatively impacted,” the Minister said.

Mr Shi Ting Wang, the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, said China-Ghana friendship had been continuously strengthened and cooperation between the two had yielded fruitful results. He said China would focus on eight major initiatives namely; industrial promotion, facility connectivity, trade facilitation, green development, capacity building, health and hygiene, humanities exchange, and peace and security within African countries, including Ghana.

The Chinese Ambassador said China was willing to provide 60 billion dollars to support Africa through government assistance, financial institutions and corporate investment and financing.

Nana Baffuor Adu Ameyaw II, the Chief of Densuso, called on the people to unite for the development of the area and expressed gratitude to the Government and the Chinese Embassy for the project.