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| Features | | Equitable water distribution nightmare in Dar | GASIRIGWA SENGIYUMVA
Daily News; Friday,January 09, 2009 @21:15
| It is almost a year now since Samora George moved from Kibaha (a small township and the capital of the Coast region) to Ubungo Kibo (a suburb in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam). To him, nothing has been a nightmare than the water shortage that he has faced all this while.
He says all the year round ever since he settled in this area; he can count the number of times when water flew from the tap unlike his previous location where water was reliable throughout. “I simply can not understand, this is the place where major pipes that bring water to the city pass through and their houses built on top of them, but those who dwell here rarely benefit from this precious resource”.
In the view of the fact that life is no easy task for low income earners, water has been added to the already disturbing bills such as electricity and house rent. George says he has to buy a 20-litre backet of water at a price between 250/- and 300/-, depending on the need and scarcity at that particular time.
“It is tolerable whenever I’m alone but whenever I have visitors, who are most of the time my relatives, it becomes a serious headache”, he adds. Salma Mohamed who stays in an adjacent street to Kibo known as Msewe says, she has been living in the area for over ten years now and problems have been the same always.
“For example, from the time when Christmas was over, there has been no water. It's two weeks now”, she says. She says her family buys water from vendors who sell a 20-litre backet for 400/-. For a family of 10 like hers, she says they need four gallons minimum in the morning, three in the afternoon and four again in the evening. Literally, her family use about 10 gallons of which cost to around 4000/- a day.
“For low income earners like us, this is pure extortion”, she laments. According to her, vendors have been getting a lot of money, of which she says is tax free because of the nature of the commodity. According to her, this is very disturbing considering the fact that other areas such as Sinza, Mwenge and affluent residencies such as Masaki, water provision is always reliable.
In a simple survey conducted by this paper indicates that many people, especially those who can not afford to buy water, resort to fetching it from wells which are locally dug and water is likely to be saline. Depending on locations in which this water is obtained, analysts point out that it is not clean and safe for human consumption.
For those who live in Dar es Salaam, would not deny the fact that water shortage is a crisis in most parts of the city. The consequences, for the 75 per cent of the population who depend for their water on informal arrangements such as these are real hard. With further to travel to find water the price also goes up for both vendors and end users.
Experts explain that the problems of Dar es Salaam’s water supply are in many ways similar to problems of urban water supply systems across the continent. They say systems installed largely in the 1950s and 1960s now are not only suffering from under maintenance and old age, but also the challenge of supplying water to populations vastly larger than they were originally set up to serve.
The main sources of water in Dar es Salaam are Lower Ruvu and Upper Ruvu plants in Ruvu River and Mtoni Plant on Kizinga River and ground water. The major problem in Dar es Salaam is unaccounted for water and unreliable water sources. It is estimated that 60 per cent of water in Dar es Salaam is unaccounted for, out of which 30 per cent is leaked.
Urban Water and Sewerage Authorities run most of the urban water supplies in the country. About 300 million litres is pumped into the system every day, while the estimated total demand is 450 million litres per day according to studies. Lower Ruvu has the capacity of producing 180 million litres per da, while the Upper Ruvu produced 82 million litres.
Of the 300 million litres that are pumped as little as 16 per cent is delivered to paying customers, the rest is lost to illegal connections and leakages. Imagine the problem to a city of around four million people. However, there is a lack of adequate water sources and resources to develop water points in the country according to UN Habitat.
Overall metering by the utilities is below 30 per cent, thus giving more customers room to waste or misuse water. Reports by this UN settlement agency show that there are high water losses which have a substantial effect on revenue collection and economies of water supply. The agency says with a proper water-demand management programme, aimed at reducing leakage, wastage and illegal connections, coverage could be increased without large capital investments.
Experts point out that the solution often adopted by water companies of concentrating, first on cutting off non-payers and illegal connections and secondly installing water meters for those that do have registered and paid for pipe connections, has unseen consequences for the vast majority of the population that have to rely on water vendors or walking to buy their water.
Moreover, we are told that privatisation for city water supplies, favoured by donors as a free market approach to urban development, can make the situation worse, especially when efforts made for short term financial prudence, come into conflict with the bigger needs of a thirsty and growing urban population.
Few years ago, for example, the Government terminated its contract with City Water Services for the management of Dar es Salaam’s water supply. The contract, in which the British firm Biwater was involved, was terminated on the grounds that the firm had failed to deliver services as per the contract.
In order to move forward, analysts identify a need to develop water conservation and demand management strategy and action plan for the city, based on the principle of efficiency and equity and thus benefit the urban poor. In addition to this, educating policy makers, senior managers and staff on water demand management would be a significant step.
This will in turn reduce the number of illegal connections, vandalism and misuse of treated water through irrigation. Speaking on vandalism; some days ago my neighbour who used to help me with water in case it flows, went without the precious liquid despite the fact that it was running in other people's taps.
When he followed it up he came to find out some unscrupulous water mongers have cut the pipe that brings water to his residence. And by this time it was no more, so he had to buy water just like the rest of the neighbours. There is also a need for water education programmes that will focus on formal education to educate children and youth in the community on the principles of management, protection and conservation, to enable them to become better water managers of tomorrow. | | | | |
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