By Ibrahim Suma
On the 18th of November 2011, an international group of pre-eminent economists wrote an open letter to US president Barrack Obama and ten other leaders of donor and developed countries to draw their attention to the international water and sanitation crisis. The letter in part reads:: "On the day you read this letter, 4,000 more children under-five [years] will die due to diseases brought about through unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation. This equates for more child death than from AIDS, malaria and measles combined, making it the biggest child killer in sub-Saharan Africa. Every $1 invested in water and sanitation generates an $8 return. This makes it the deal that will deliver for billions of the poorest people across the globe".
The above appeal to world leaders from these outstanding intellectuals clearly helped to highlight the importance of safe drinking water among nations and Sierra Leone is no exception. Water has always been an important and life sustaining element to humans and is essential to the survival of organisms. Excluding fat water composes approximately 70% of the human body by mass. It is a crucial component of metabolic process and serves as a solvent to many bodily solutes. Water is often taken for granted, but this simple molecule is more than just highly essential. You can survive for weeks, even months, if your diet lacks carbohydrate, protein and vitamins. But if you do not have any water, your life will end within a week or two.
To make pure drinking water accessible in a country is very crucial for the health and well-being of its people because there are a lot of diseases contracted through low quality drinking water that can affect the health and liveability of the people and their development aspirations. Here are a few of the major water borne diseases: diarrhoea, cholera, E.coli, typhoid fever and intestinal worms.
The UN adopted the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) following the Millennium Summit in 2000 to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions in the world's poorest countries. In that 8-goal declaration, goal 7 targets "halving by 2015 the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation". News came in recently from the BBC that the UN says it has reached its global target of halving the number of people without access to clean drinking water even before the target year of 2015.
This success story is largely in Asia (China and India in particular) where governments have made it a priority to provide their people with safe drinking water. The poor quality water situation in sub-Saharan Africa remains the same with only a few countries like Ghana and Burkina Faso having made heartening progress. I am less than enamoured by the priority that is given to Goal 7 by the government of Sierra Leone and the institutions that are responsible for the provision of pure drinking water i.e. Guma Valley Water Company in the Western Area and Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO) in the provinces.
Even though we are endowed with abundance of fresh water, our drinking water infrastructure is arguably one of the worst in West Africa. In the Western Area which includes the country's capital Freetown, more than two-third of the inhabitants rely on sources other than pipe-borne, for water to even drink. The situations in the provinces are either the same or worse than what obtains in Freetown.
In these situations where Government has largely abandoned its duty in the adequate provision of a key public utility, individuals have taken their destiny into their own hands by looking for alternative sources of drinking water. The not-for-profit local and international agencies specialised in the provision of water are also providing support in this direction.
There has to be a paradigm shift in the provision of quality drinking water if any meaningful progress is to be made in the quality of water we drink in the country. It has to do with a holistic, scientific regime to test for the purity of water, especially for the purpose of drinking, and the dissemination of that information for the consumption of the wider public regardless of where the people live.
Water quality changes from time to time. It is therefore imperative to remain focused on checking for water quality and single out any micro-biological contamination or toxins that may pose a hazard to public health. However to undertake a widespread water quality monitoring to keep risk of contamination in control can be very expensive and in some cases a logistical nightmare. If you put the cost-benefit analysis into perspective, government which has the primary responsibility to provide its people with good drinking water, will have no option but to make it the top priority that it deserves on its budgetary allocations.
On the 22nd March 2011, on World Water Day, 70 water marketers evaded the National Water quality Laboratory test at the ministry of Energy and Water resources. Comprehensive water testing for purity is not regular in Sierra Leone . In instances where tests are done it is not across the board as has been demonstrated by large proportion of water marketers not allowing their products to come under the microscope. These water marketers on whose waters a significant number of the population depends for safe drinking are going about their businesses largely unregulated. In instances where their waters fail purity test little or no disciplinary or punitive measures are taken against them to serve as a corrective measure and a deterrent to others.
If government takes the far-reaching ramifications of poor drinking water in to account, it will see the need to make it a matter of top priority. Government should provide the enabling environment and the wherewithal for the creation of an ultramodern laboratory that will undertake the task of quality water testing through out the country and to make sure that the information is available and accessible to the general populace. This is very critical because it can lead to awareness about the water quality situation and an informed choice on the part of the consumers.
Water Marketers are doing well in the private sector by providing a product that is normally provided by government. There is a boom in the business and the marketers are taking advantage of the situation and making quite a fortune. However this is where government and the authorities concerned are getting it woefully wrong by leaving the water marketers on to their own devices. Government should step in to ensure compliance with water purity test is adhered to. When this is done we can be rest assured of a virtuous cycle: If the waters are tested, and the names of the marketers publicised, those who pass the test will certainly bank on this as good publicity that will increase the sales of their products. This outcome in return will get the people to make the right choice of water that is good for their health and well being. It will also reduce the burden of treating water-borne diseases on the health care delivery system.
On the other hand if the names of the water marketers who fail the test are in the public domain, the bad publicity will affect their business and will serve as an incentive for them to improve on the quality of their product. If they do not , they are likely to go out of business. Such a consequence for inefficient and low standard water marketers is only good for the consuming public.
Comprehensive water purity tests and disclosure should not be limited only to water marketers . The Guma Valley dams and reservoirs are required periodic tests as well as the sources of drinking water of every community in the country and the information available to the drinking public in a mode that they can access easily. Testing for water purity and letting people know the result is a key development action that government and other major stake holders should not take with a pinch of salt. As the saying goes "the quality of life of anyone and of society depends on the frontier of their knowledge”. This is one way of continually proving that water companies and other stakeholders are up to their mettle.
An ongoing process of providing expert advice to improve or maintain water quality to every company, marketer or stake holder within the water infrastructure is very important. If this is sustained, it will enhance the capacity of all involved and improve the water quality situation in the country.
As I am writing this article, sadly news is coming in to substantiate my concern that Government needs to take more action to improve on the poor drinking water situation in the country. There are reports of an outbreak of cholera in Sulima village in Pujehun District and in parts of Port Loko and Kambia in the north which has resulted in the deaths of dozens of people. It is highly likely the ailment is related to unsafe drinking water. Unfortunately this is a perennial health problem Successive governments have not been able to address by improving the safe drinking water condition in the country.
A good number of the people who fall ill in Sierra Leone do so as a result of water borne diseases. Government must do more to improve on this basic need for its people if it is serious about its rhetoric of making development strides in leaps and bounds.
