The Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Freda Prempeh, has refuted claims that her ministry received $125 million from the World Bank for a five-year program aimed at training environmental inspectors to pursue sanitation offenders.

She issued this statement in Kumasi during the inauguration of 38 institutional toilet facilities spanning eight district assemblies in the Ashanti Region on Friday.

The minister clarified that the reports misrepresent what her ministry officials conveyed during the training of environmental prosecutors in Tamale the previous month.

In her clarification, she pointed out that the $125 million represented the entire budget for the four-year Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water project, which commenced in 2021.

Furthermore, she elaborated that the training of environmental prosecutors was merely one component within the capacity-building aspect of the four-year project.

“Recently, we saw a viral video, a publication going around indicating that the World Bank had given the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources $125 million. Let me put on record here that the World Bank has not dumped any money in my office as is being speculated around that 125 million has been given to the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources,” she said.

“Indeed, they have a project that together has about four components which sum up to $125 million which was started years ago, some being taken in Kumasi and some in Accra. And yet somebody somewhere decided to do his own story that $125 million had been given to the Minister of Sanitation. No such monies have been dumped in my office,” she stated.

The objective of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area (GAMA) Sanitation and Water Project for Ghana is to increase access to improved sanitation and improved water supply in the GAMA, with emphasis on low income communities and to strengthen management of environmental sanitation in the GAMA.

The project has four components. The first component is provision of environmental sanitation and water supply services to priority low income areas of the GAMA.

The second component is improvement and expansion of the water distribution network in the GAMA. The third component is planning, improvement and expansion of GAMA-wide environmental sanitation services.

The fourth component is institutional strengthening. This component will provide technical assistance (TA) to municipal, metropolitan and national institutions, including the promotion of private sector initiatives.