2.2.

2 Institutional capacity
Lamiley (2012) posited that like the DWA in South Africa, Ghana has the Water Directorate
that is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies and strategies for the
water sector. The difference, however, is that the DWA directly supervises implementation of
programmes, whereas Ghana’s Water Directorate rather coordinates activities of several
agencies that do the implementation. Unlike the DWA of South Africa, the Water Directorate
is currently hugely under-resourced to play any effective role. The DWA with a workforce of
8,000 is one of the largest public institutions in South Africa, directly coordinating all water
management, supply and research activities and appears to be in full control of policy and
implementation of both water resources management and water supply issues.
Ghana’s Water Directorate compared with the DWA is not strong enough in terms of staffing
(only 15 workers over 90 per cent of who are short-term project staff and those on
secondment from other agencies) and structure to take full control although Ghana on the
other hand has a very strong institutional arrangement with agencies such as the Community
Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), the Water Resources Commission (WRC) and the
Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) playing specialised roles and with the PURC
playing a regulatory role.

2.2.3 Taking Financial Control of the Water Sector

According to Lamiley (2012), as delegates listened keenly to the various presentations, one
issue that clearly came up was the fact that the Central Government funds the entire water
and sanitation sector in South Africa upon advice from the DWA with little or no financial
support from international donors. According to officials, about 60 per cent of the Municipal
Infrastructure Grant is meant for water and sanitation interventions. Most of their water
supply agencies (the Water Boards), though government owned, are self-reliant and they