Bamenda water situation worsens

Despite govt’s efforts to curb water crisis in Bamenda, the situation in the city intensifies.

If water is life as some consider it to be, one can conveniently say there isn’t enough life in Bamenda, the capital city of the North West Region as getting drinkable water in the city has become a problem.

It’s been several months now since residents of Bamenda began living with shortage of pipe borne water supposedly resulting from what has been described as inefficiency and poor management by those in charge of infrastructure that supplies the City with water.

As we report, the gravity of the situation has deteriorated severely and is keeping the region’s Administration very worried, almost to a breaking point.

To avert any unprecedented uprising from the people, Bamenda City Council, BCC, in collaboration with the Army Rescue Unit in Mullang, has resorted to rationing what is available to residents.

Heavy duty trucks can be seen making endless rounds Bamenda daily to ration water according to schedules frequently announced on local FM radios that must be strictly respected if homes must get drinking water.

When the situation first began getting out of the control of municipal authorities, the Region’s governor, Adolphe Lele stepped in and began using the Army Rescue Unit, to ration water to the various neighborhoods.

Despite that effort, the problem remains largely unresolved. There was some welcome relief and hope when at the beginning of this month, the city witnessed some heavy downpour. Residents resorted to collecting rainwater to compliment the rations which in a way would have helped the situation a great deal. But to their disappointment, the rains have worsen the situation.

Streams which served people with considerable volume of water have become very dirty owing to rubbish washed from the streets by rain and deposited into them.

The situation is even more difficult for people who depend solely on pipe-borne water for all their day-to-day activities.

It is however, somewhat better for those who own wells. Some of the well-owners are in fact now making brisk business as they sell water in varied quantities to those who have no other sources to depend on.

Many residents are seen on the streets carrying empty containers of different colours and sizes to their various job sites just in case the taps there flow that day.

Others queue up with huge containers to receive water, at scheduled distribution centres, but sometimes end up getting not even a drop of it to take home.

As if this isn’t enough, homes without pit toilets now suffer very poor hygienic conditions because of the stench emanating from the toilets – which, of course, cannot be properly taken care of owing to the water shortage.

For the same reason, most public toilets in Bamenda have become unbearably dirty and utterly unusable, attracting a possible disease epidemic. Already, there has been a reported increase in the rate of typhoid disease cases in the city.

The one and only prayer in the hearts of most residents of the City is for the rainy season to come in full gear, so they can have rainwater on regular basis to depend on – at least for the time being.