By Davis Buyondo
Lwengo
It’s past midday and the milky clouds gently glide in the bright sky. There is no sign it will rain. The residents of Ndeeba Trading Centre in Naanywa parish, Ndagwe sub-county, are concentrating on their chores.
A group of noisy barefoot-boys and girls- five and eight years of age- arrive at a Solar-powered borehole with their 5ltr-jerricans.
Their pitched and disorganised voices prevail as they compete to fill the jerrycans. It takes them around two or three minutes to fill each jerrycan.
The water station serves residents of Ndeeba Trading Centre, Kiswaaga, and Bukulula villages.
Unlike the ordinary boreholes that are manually pumped, the solar-powered borehole system is designed in a way it can simply suck water from underground and pump it to a 10,000ltr-tank, placed at an altitude of about 16ft-high.
The water is then supplied through various taps by gravitational force. The system is connected to a solar panel that supplies power to enable the functionality of the borehole pump.
Especially, for districts in the cattle corridor like Lwengo, such advanced technologies count a lot in addressing the extreme water shortage.
At least more than 400 households in Ndeeba T.C, Kiswaaga, and Bukulula villages have embraced the Ndeeba-Naanywa Water Scheme for the last four years. The direct beneficiaries are mainly, residents, water vendors, health clinics, small-scale agro-processing industries, and poultry farmers.
Lydia Nakachwa, one of the residents in Ndeeba T.C, one of the benefitaries recounted that it was difficult to get clean water in time because the three communities relied on one ordinary manually borehole.
She explained that they would spend more than eight hours and sometimes the whole day waiting in the queue to get water. The borehole did not only serve Kiswaaga village but also residents from Ndeeba, Namembe, Kabutemba, and other surrounding communities.
“You reach the borehole at10am and find over 50 people waiting in the queue with their jerrycans in the scorching sun. Worse of it all, it’s a manual facility which took about 20 minutes to fill four jerrycans. But gone are the days and we are better off now,” she recounted.
She is a witness of water fights between groups of youths from the neighbouring villages those in the host community. And the scared women and children would choose to either return home without water or wait longer until late hours when the number of people reduced.
“For the wise ones, fetching water beyond 10pm was the only option. Others would be forced to fetch from swamps and ponds as a better alternative to waiting in the long queues,” she said.
Nakachwa further said that several people including the students would use the borehole as a meeting point. “Especially youths and some married women used to take advantage of the long queues to leave their jerrycans in the line and got to the bush to have sex with their partners,” she said.
Margret Nambogo, a resident of Ndeeba trading centre, explained that the ordinary manual borehole would often spark domestic violence in different families.
She said that women would return home late and get battered by their husbands while children were also punished by their parents and guardians for delaying at the borehole.
It is reportedly said that shameless men would raid girls and rape them on their long trek to collect water from other communities.
“Therefore, families resorted to fetching from ponds in a bid to protect their children. The burden continued until 2016 when the water project was set up in the trading centre,” she recounted.
Joram Kazibwe, a 7-year-old boy of Kiswaga village, said he and his peers can get water with ease because the system has four taps which can supply different people.
“I can fill two or four jerrycans at once if there is no one using the taps. And I can come back any time I want and take water because I stay nearer,” he said.
According to Fred Mubiru, another resident of Bukulula village, the scheme saved them from drinking dirty water from the ponds which they used to share with their animals.
He noted that they regularly contracted waterborne diseases mainly typhoid which reduced when a safe and clean water project was established.
Mubiru, also, a water vendor, said that the situation would be twice difficult when the borehole broke down.
Female Councilor
Costa Zalwango, the Female Councilor representing the Ndagwe sub-county said that the project’s good quality water has helped to reduce water-related illnesses which were common before it was brought to the Ndeeba.
She explained that access to clean water made it easier for the local leaders in Ndeeba trading centre, Kiswaaga and the neighbouring villages to enforce handwashing, one of the Ministry of Health guidelines in the fight against the Coronavirus (COVID19) pandemic.
About domestic violence, Zalwango said that at least one case was reported every day but they reduced after the project implementation in Ndeeba, Kiswaaga and Bukulula villages but the cases still happen in communities with the severe water crisis across Ndagwe sub-county.
She appealed to government and Lwengo District Local Government to extend more water projects in Ndagwe sub-county to address the scarcity in various communities.
According to the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), at least over 800 children die every day from preventable diseases caused by poor water, and a lack of sanitation and hygiene.
Other projects
There are three similar schemes in Kyasonko, Kiwangala and Nakateete villages (Kisekka sub-county). Others are located in Lwempanyi village in Malongo sub-county, Lubaale village in Kyazanga sub-county, and Nzizi in Kingo sub-county.
The Ndeeba-Naanywa project was set up in 2016 to provide water for more than 235 families in Kiswaga village.
There is another private manual borehole that was constructed through a private project to serve the community of Kiswaaga. Residents mainly children frequent the borehole to fetch water mostly in the morning hours.
Godfrey Mutemba, the Lwengo Natural Resources Officer, said that the project cost more than sh83m. According to Mutemba, the funds came straight from the ministry of finance under the consolidated fund.
“I was meant to improve access to clean and safe water in rural areas. With access to water, the projects have lessened the pressure on swamps and a few water sources,” he noted.
He explained that there was a time when the water table reduced making it hard for the district to make boreholes. And the few that existed were overwhelmed by the increasing population from various communities.
Charles Namutinda, the Assistant District Water Officer, explained that the schemes have improved water coverage in the district by at least 68 per cent.
He said that before Lwengo was split from Masaka about eleven years ago, the water coverage was at 54 per cent. “That explains some improvement although we are still struggling to reach at least 80percent in five to ten years,” he said.
Challenges
Although the water schemes have changed lives and improved water coverage in the district, Livingstone Ssenyomo, the Secretary Ndeeba-Naanywa Water Scheme, argues that they are facing several challenges while managing the project.
Ssenyomo said that it is quite a challenge to manage and maintain the water system since the majority of community members do not want to pay for its servicing.
However, the district does not allocate any funds for maintenance of the whole water system and to pay the managers, according to Ssenyomo.
He explained that the Kiswaaga and Bukulula community leaders and residents agreed to charge at least sh2,000 from every household, sh5,000 for water vendors and restaurants and factories sh10,000.
“As of April this year, we had registered at least 235 households which were willing to contribute that amount. However, the majority refused,” he said.
But in August, only 112 out of the 235 households had paid attributing people’s decline to pay for maintenance to politicians who encouraged residents not to pay the fees claiming it was a free government project.
Justine Namata, the scheme manager, said that people can fetch water during day and night without limit. She further said that the cloudy weather conditions usually put the Solar system out of action that the borehole mortar cannot function well.
As a result, the pressure at which the water is pumped from underground reduces leading to the insufficient water supply.
“If residents comply and pay the monthly fees then it will be easy for us to buy a duo purpose system to pump water using solar and UMEME,” she said.
END
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