Prime
Ensure access to clean and safe water for all
Children fetching water in Uganda. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
The issue: Safe and clean water
Our view: Residents of these islands have a fair share of livelihood troubles but surely water shouldn’t be one of them. It is therefore important that authorities fall in line to do whatever it takes to ensure that a need as basic as clean and safe water is met and that access to sanitation facilities is improved.
In our story titled, “Kalangala residents decry lack of safe and clean water” Kalangala residents decry lack of clean and safe water of April 14, we highlighted records from Ministry of Water that show that Uganda failed to attain the access to clean water target in rural areas as planned in the Water and Environment Development sector plan 2015/2016 to 2019/2020
This was attributed to inadequate functional boreholes in rural areas.
Out of 60,000 boreholes constructed across the country, 12000 are not functional and the government is capable of repairing only 40 percent.
And a total of seven million Ugandans lack access to safe water and 28 million do not have access to improved sanitation facilities.
These records were cited as a backdrop to the story that revealed that of the 64 inhabited islands of Kalangala District, only two - Buggala and Bukasa - have access to clean and safe water.
The rest of the population is said to be drawing water directly from the lake and unprotected ponds, which exposes them to hygiene-related diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery.
There are also reports of residents falling prey to crocodiles while drawing water from swamps.
Lack of safe and clean water also always leads to consumption of unsafe water and poor sanitation which ends up in contracting waterborne diseases.
Reports of these islands struggling with access to clean and safe water abound which is quite ridiculous in itself is given their geographical positioning.
Questions ought to be asked of those in charge for instance as to why safe water projects seem to fail, why enough boreholes are not drilled and the like.
Residents of these islands have a fair share of livelihood troubles but surely water shouldn’t be one of them. It is therefore important that authorities fall in line to do whatever it takes to ensure that a need as basic as clean and safe water is met and that access to sanitation facilities is improved.
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