Pupils living in Ninting in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region have called on the local authorities to urgently attend to their water needs.

According to them, the long denial of a decent water source has become unbearable, especially amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

For decades, the children have depended on the water that oozes from rocks for both drinking and domestic chores.

A number of children gather in long queues daily to scoop the water which gathers in a small tunnel before heading to school.

A student, Augustina Pokua speaking to Luv FM’s Nana Yaw Gyimah explained that “the queue sometimes is very long so we end up running late for school.”

The re-opening of schools in the wake of a pandemic in which handwashing happens to be key among other protocols has aroused fears of parents and children in the community.

It was expected of every child to at least send a gallon of water to school daily but now that more water will be needed, especially for hand washing, the children fear the challenge ahead.

“I wish we had water in school for hand washing and other chores, but unfortunately we don’t have unless we come home before washing our hands,” a child cried.

Another child indicated that “Unless we come to fetch water every day before going to school and while at it, we run late.”

“Sometimes they have to go to the next village for water but even that, you will have to wait till the community member there are done fetching,” she said.

Head of Ninting Royal Family, Nana Adu Asare said efforts to get a proper water supply in the community have proven futile even though an extension could be made from Mampong, a 4kilo meters away from Ninting.

“When Nana Addo announced that the assemblies would supply free water to communities without water we were expecting that they will bring us water.

“They started for about two days and on the third day they said the petrol they were using was too much so they wanted the people to buy at 20 pesewas per gallon.”

He is calling on authorities to come to their aid.

“We have two primary schools and two JHS on separate grounds so we need about three poly tanks right now,” Nana Adu Asare.