A development consultant, Rudolph Amenga-Etego, has called for the inclusion of the citizens’ right to water and sanitation in the nation’s constitution, so as to make their provision by the government enforceable. He said although the constitution guaranteed the individual’s right to life, the absence of an explicit provision making it mandatory for the government to provide the citizenry with those services “absolves it of any obligation in the provision of these services.“The 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana does not explicitly provide for the right to water and sanitation,” he said.Mr. Amenga-Etego was speaking at a day’s capacity building seminar organised by Water and Sanitation for Urban Poor (WSUP), a non-governmental organisation, in collaboration with Water Aid Ghana (WAG) for some media practitioners in Kumasi.Basing his call on the provision of sub-Section One (1) of Section 13 of Chapter 5 of the 1992 Constitution, Mr. Amenga-Etego said: “There cannot be life without water particularly, safe water. It goes without saying that any person who is deprived of his or her access to water is being essentially deprived of his or her life, and by virtue of the above provision that will be unconstitutional.” Section 13 (1) of Chapter Five (5) of the 1992 Constitution stipulates: “No person shall be deprived of his life intentionally except in the exercise of the execution of a sentence of a court.” He, therefore, stressed the need for a legal framework that make the provision of water and sanitation by government enforceable in the court of law “Water as a basic life support cannot be treated less than a right,” he contended.Mr Amenga-Etego noted that in spite of the many international conventions, including the Abuja Declaration in 2006 ratified by Ghana in which the government pledged its commitment to promote the right of the citizenry to have access to clean and safe water and sanitation, many communities still lacked those basic services.He challenged the media to keep the government on its toes by exposing the effects that the absence of those two vital services was having on the people, and its consequences on the large population.For his part, Rashid A. Zakaria, Programme Manager for Urban Agriculture Network (UrbAnet), a non-the governmental organisation based in the Northern Region, also urged government to adopt a Right-Based Approach (RBA) in the management of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) issues.That, he said, would not only ensure the sustenance of the projects implemented during the intervention period, but also make the beneficiaries owners of the projects.RBA is a development concept which defines poverty as not just the lack of income or material resources, but also as the lack of power to access, use or control resources adequate, to fulfill a standard of living consistent with a life of dignity. This approach to development also links poverty to power and human rights.