By Matthew Okello
TORORO
There were celebrations today in Petta Sub County as the locals of Mbula parish received a shilling 450m water project that was installed by Africa Water Solutions.
The project is comprised of a pump station, a 40,000 litres water reservoir and 8 water points running for 8Kms
Elisha Dunshime, the projects manager of Africa Water Solutions said that the project was installed in the parish after a survey indicated poor water coverage in the area where residents were moving for long distances to access water.
He also revealed that the project was able to improve pit latrine coverage in the parish from 43% in 2019 to 91.6% but was also able to construct 5 pit Latrines in different primary schools within West Budama and purchased 3 water tanks in different health centers in the same areas.
Dunshime however revealed that the project is currently facing a challenge of low water consumption where over 40,000 litres of water is pumped everyday but only 5000 litres is consumed by the community leading to an overflow.
John Ochieng, the executive director of Africa Water Solutions says that the organization has currently received funds to extend the project but can’t proceed because of low consumption of water from already benefitting villages.
Sabano Samali Epiat, the Tororo district assistant CAO in charge of health and education applauded the organization for considering the community. He however asked them to consider extending the program to other needy sub counties like Kalait.
Patrick Owino Omita, the Tororo district assistant health officer says that whatever the organization has done is in line with the sustainable development goal 3 and that calls for covering communities with clean water in a bid to promote good health.
He also used the opportunity to announce that the district has received COVID 19 vaccines and are currently distributed in different health centers hence calling upon the public to go and benefit from the vaccine
Tororo district secretary of works, Molly Anyeko Cheria asked the women to utilize the water to polish their hygiene so that their husbands do not abandon them for other women.
She asked the community to vigorously mobilize for maintenance fee for sustainability of the project.
The Tororo district resident commissioner, Nixon Owole asked politicians to stop the cheap politics of repairing community boreholes a role that is supposed to be played by the village water user committees
The RDC revealed that politicians repairing boreholes has kept the communities lazy in that they cannot contribute for basic society needs like repairing boreholes.
