By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC) will need US$100 million annually for the next ten years, amounting to US$1billion, to ensure everyone in the Western Area gets access to pure and safe drinking water, the company said.
Officials of Guma made the projection during the presentation of their budget to government on Thursday, as part of the ongoing national budget presentation hearing.
GVWC is a semi-autonomous state enterprise that is mandated to provide and manage all water facilities in the Western Area – Freetown and its environs. Its Managing Director, Maada Kpengeh, said at Thursday’s hearing that only 50% of the current population residing in the Western Area have access to water at the moment. He said their planned investment is aimed at increasing access to 75% by 2023 and 100% by 2028.
“Right now the number of people getting water from Guma is about 50%, taking into consideration that Freetown is also the industrial base for Sierra Leone, so we have a lot of industries that rely on Guma to supply them water. Where we need to be in 2028 is that everyone should get access to water and the amount of the investment you need in about 10 years to close that gap is about US$800 million to US$1billion. That is serious money,” he said.
Kpengeh said the money will be invested in the necessary infrastructure which will guarantee water supply in the long run to a growing population in the Western Area.
“This is a money that will go in to developing the Rokel River project, it’s money that can go in to developing the Orugu project, the Congo Dam project, and even to expand our distribution systems. So it will be efficient and will be able to cater for the population in the next 50 years. We need that much money to create the infrastructure,” he added.
Scarcity of pipe borne water in Freetown and its environs is a perennial problem. Guma has always come under scrutiny for this.
For decades now the company has been complaining about population explosion and its crumbling infrastructure as hindrance against meeting the growing demand. This has further been complicated by the refusal of citizens and government to honor water bills.
GVWC’s presentation show that they are owed up to Le27 billion debt by government MDAs. The company does not get subvention from government. They are a public business enterprise that are expected to at least make enough money to run themselves.
According to Guma’s presentation, 55% of the water it supplies is not paid for.
But Kpengeh said they need government’s support to improve the water infrastructure and that providing money as counter ‘part funding’ is crucial to solving the current water situation.
“We have donors like DFID, African Development Bank, World Bank that give money to address WASH issues. But the donors always demand that even though the money is free, government should contribute about 10%. So, when they bring their own money, they expect government to bring its own.
“For example, the DFID project that we are running now to rehabilitate the existing water structure in Freetown, we need money to relocate people who have built houses on water pipes, so [that] we can lay new pipes. But they (DFID) will not agree to use their own money to pay for resettlement. So they expect government to foot that part of the bill. And they will not agree to a proposal that involves sending people away without paying for their relocation.”
For 2020, GVWC is demanding just over US $9 million, almost 20% of the national budget. They said the money will be used in increasing access, reduce leakages, getting meter system and investment in WASH projects, among others.
Dr James Edwin, Chairman of National Monitoring and Evaluation Department (NaMED), told officials of Guma following their presentation that their budget is too ambitious, and that government could afford to give them that much.
Dr Edwin later explained to Politico that even though water is important, the company should look at prioritizing their programs.
“We’ve told them to go and prioritise. The ambition is there and its fine, but it’s just too ambitious. Government has a lot of other priorities; water we know is important but because it (GVWC) is a revenue generation agency maybe that is why government is a little bit slow to do this.”
Dr Edwin added that the solution to Guma’s predicament could be to adopt some innovative ways to recover their debts and get government to fulfill its commitment to counterpart funding.
“If a ministry has a budget for water bill, cut it straight from the Ministry of Finance. Somebody was talking about meters. Since they (GVWC) need money for meters, they should take those meters to the MDAs. That is an idea. Maybe if we start from there, they would be able to raise the funds,” he said.
On counterpart funding, he noted: “The best way to do that sometimes is to covert that into utilities. For example, if you are in a building that you are paying for, you can list that as government’s contribution, some salaries and consultancies you can list all of those as government’s contribution. But if you put it down to key deliverables, then that becomes a problem.”
Kpengeh also admitted that what they asked for is huge and that it might be difficult for government to provide that much to the water sector. He said they are looking for alternative ways.
“We know that this money is huge and we can’t get it easily, even from government. So, we are trying to be innovative by looking at various funding sources to raise this money, with the support of government off course,” he said.
He said they can do much with whatever government gives them. “If government cannot give us US$10million, let them just give us US$1 million and see what we can do with it.”
Budget Advocacy Network is one of the leading civil society groups that is seriously engaged in the budget process. Abdul Rahman Sesay, a representative of the CSO, said it just makes sense for government to support the company so that they can cut down on their 55% non- revenue water.
“What we can do is to support Guma so they can capture the lossss. If they collect money for the 55% non-revenue water they are losing, they would generate more than Le70 billion per year. The mathematics supports it,” Sesay said.
This year the company generated Le36 billion in revenue.
© 2019 Politico Online
