Time for councils to take over supply of water to communities

For two days, there was no water in the Acacia neigbourhood in Yaounde, the capital which would have been the show case of the country in the provision of basic amenities. When the water finally came after an agonising wait, it was brownish; in contradiction of the natural description that drinking water has no colour.

That reminds me of a remark made by the former general manager of SNEC, the predecessor of CDE. He said the brown liquid was harmless to human health except when used to bleach white dresses against the wish of the drycleaner.

As I grumbled, a friend living in the new lay-out around the military academy in Mendong told me we were even lucky to have water intermittently. There is just no water there as in many suburbs of the swelling capital with seven councils.

If the capital does not have clean water regularly, what then do we expect from villages and sub-urban areas? Mutengene in the South West for example, with some 50.000 inhabitants has just a community water project managed by a committee of people with gross deficiency in water sanitation and management.

Public stand-by taps are broken and left to dray for months while those who pay hundreds of thousands to connect water to their houses do not get water.

There are few suburban centres with their own water systems that are poorly managed by idle people who are more interested in what they pilfer than ensuring that the community gets the best from their water systems.

I am aware that CAMWATER is working tediously on massive water projects in Douala and Yaounde, but it is doubtful if on completion, the two cities will have enough water for CDE to sell. It concentrates on just very few big towns which one can count with the fingers of the hand.

The bottom-line is that there is a water crisis in Cameroon, even if decision- makers want to push it under the carpet. We have not met the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 to ensure that in the water sector; at least water supply should reach 50 percent by next year.

CAMWATER and its distributor, CDE, surely cannot provide enough water which is generally believed to be the source of life. Lack of access to good drinking water is the cause of wide-spread water-borne diseases like typhoid, cholera, dysentery and bilharzia.

With government’s pet project to emerge in 2035, the demand for water for industrial and agricultural activities will be stretching. For example, 46 per cent of Cameroon water sources were used in 1987 for domestic purposes.

In the same year, agriculture took 35 percent while industries got 19 percent. By 2010, domestic consumption plunged to seven percent while agriculture took the Lion’s share of 76 percent despite a 50 percent rise in the population. It’s a dangerous trend.

Shouldn’t water production and distribution be given to councils especially in the rural and sub-urban communities? Admittedly, the government and some councils budget for the drilling of some boreholes yearly. But this source is often not maintained and sooner than later the wells dry up like the notorious cases of Scan Water that have been abandoned due to no maintenance.

By next year when the remaining 12 ministries will surrender their investment resources and competences to councils, the state must ensure that the various mayors tackle water crisis in their municipalities.

Cameroon is lucky to be endowed with gushing streams, rivers, lakes and ponds in nearly every locality. It should not lack water which constitutes 75 per cent of the human body. It is the means of survival for birds, animals, fish, agriculture and industry without which they is no existence.

Postscript: More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world. - WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation.