By Tilly Barrie
Chief administrator in the Kenema city council has said that there is a joint project between the town and district councils to get people within the township and its periphery to benefit from pipe borne water.
Daniel Sahr Momoh said there should have been devolution of water resources to the council since 2005 but the country’s water company has was yet to make that possible.
“Although it is on paper it is not practical because SALWACO is still dealing with water supply”, he noted, adding that since he took over office a few days ago he had sent a project to the British department for international development, DfID on solid waste disposal.
Principal of the Holy Rosary Junior Secondary School in Kenema, Frances Tarawally, said they had to send children to the community to fetch water because they always had water crisis in the school.
“I have pleaded with SALWACO and other agencies to help us with water because the school has 800 children and we have 11 flush toilets but no running water”, said Mrs Tarawally.
She said that the problem started last year but the Catholic Mission had tried to help and find some solution.
“There is a toilet built in the school under the 3 town water supply and sanitation project. It was completed last February but to date it hasn’t been commissioned by the president and so the children cannot use it”, she explained.
Water and sanitation engineer with SALWACO, Andrew George, said though water supply had dropped because of the dries, Kenema had the best water supply system with a gravity scheme that was doing well.
“People don’t pay water rates and most of the times stand pipes erected at strategic locations have been damaged”, he pointed out.
Regional development officer for SALWACO, John Swaray, explained that he had been going around giving brochures and lists of prices to people, method of connection and the need for sustainability of water and has even engaged council on how to serve the community.
Health coordinator in the Kenema city council, Mohamed Nyallay, said “that 50% of the toilets in Kenema are filled up with human wastes and excreta and they don’t have cesspit disposal vehicles to evacuate the waste. So, they resort to night soil me”.
He added that the cesspit bowser they had used for over 5 months was now with the Bo city council for the same purpose, noting that people had encroached into the dumping site, leaving no land for use as transit points in the city.
Mr. Nyallay said that UNICEF had not given them chlorine, a water treatment chemical, for the last two years and that the facility to treat water was not enough in the city.
(C) Politico 18/03/14
