By Mohamed T Massaquoi
Some residents in the Southern district of Pujehun have expressed concerns over ‘constraints in accessing safe drinking water’ in their various localities.
The lack of safe drinking water has been a perennial problem in Pujehun town and other parts of the district.
The crisis has particularly affected chiefdoms like Kpaka, Galliness Perri, Sorogbeima, Mano Sakrim, YKK, and Kpanga Kabondeh.
According to a resident in the district, Baindu Kaikai, the source of the water is not enough for the growing population in the township.
“Our population outweighs our source of water,” Kaikai told Politico.
Kaikai lives in Yoni town, a township that is just a mile away from the district headquarter. Her situation is a reflection of the larger picture of the constraint most people here are going through daily.
She said this has particularly affected education as children struggle to meet the demand for water for their families and to pay attention to their schooling. “This has been contributing to children arriving at school late because they have to spend a lot of hours to fetch water,” said Kaikai.
Residents have already started calling on authorities to respond to the water shortage.
Brima Fullah, a resident at Ngagama Village, said they had already alerted the council to finding alternate source for water supply.
“We are calling on the district council and other NGOs in providing hand pump for us in our village as our only point of accessing drinking water has been the nearby stream.’’
Sadiq Silla, Chairman of the Pujehun District Council, acknowledged the problem and promised that as a Council they were working on a plan to have the central government could devolve the provision of pipe born water to councils.
Sillah believes the problem can only be resolved this way. He told Politico that the district has about 900 villages with only seven hundred water points.
“This means there are over three hundred villages without safe drinking water," Sillah said. He said the government had agreed to run pipe born water from the district headquarter town of Pujehun to Massam Kpaka about four miles off.
Silla also told Politico that the African Development Bank, through the Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO), had approved a new system of providing water facility to every community in the district with the use of solar system. But this, he said, was still on a pilot phase.
(C) Politico 13/04/16
