Compatriot Kintu-Nyago at the Monitor Publications,
Early this year when there was plenty of noise as to how Egypt and Sudan had given the Great Lakes Region a raw deal on the waters of the Nile, I remember you saying that if Egypt and Sudan were not careful they would face the wrath of the Uganda Armed Forces - that UPDF was the mightiest army on the African continent.
Now besides UPDF, you know Ugandans claim that the pearl is the best country in the world, and with women of such beauty and grace - the good Lord must have used both hands when bestowing to us such!! ( at times they are referring to Baganda women here).
And that Uganda also has the best civil service in Africa. That Makerere is tops and has the best medical school around all the tropics of the globe.
The list of things in which Uganda is best, I am sure must still be growing all time.
What struck me when I lived in Southern Africa was that they too have countless attributes in which they claim they are the best.
They have kingdoms on top of the Drukensburg mountains, kingdoms that are the envy of even the Swiss!!.
The blood that courses in the veins of a Zulu person is said to be the best blood the in the world - sacred even.
If you a "Mukwerekwere" would be so insane as to kill a Zulu I shudder to think of what punishment you deserve!!
Even here in Canada it is claimed everyday that Canada is the best country to live in the world, and that the world has no city like Toronto.
So with all these claims around I am forced to refrain from beating on Uganda, our poor country.
But when I saw the story below, of how all the cities around Lake Victoria have polluted the water by turning the lake into one giant dump for urban human waste it set me thinking that maybe even after we have used our mighty UPDF to go and beat the shit out of those Arabs in Sudan and Egypt we will still have a septic tank from which to draw our drinking water!!
Do you think, Compatriot Kintu-Nyago, that Baraka Obama, like the Hercules in the classics, can help us clean this mess?
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Incompetence of government: No water in Nile Basin?
No water in Nile Basin? ![]()
NO WATER NEXT TO L. VICTORIA: Kisenyi residents in the heart of Kampala fetch water from a spring
By Moussa Awuonda
OVER the last 10 years, the infamous Nile Water Treaties have come up for debate. Crafted during the British colonial rule, the 1959 Agreement in particular gave Egypt and Sudan unfair powers for controlling the use of River Nile waters. The Nile is shared by 10 countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. Nile upstream countries like Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania — bound by the treaties — have been grumbling.
And for good reasons: population pressure and water demands have become acute over the years. According to the UN World Water Development Report, 2003, Kenya is ranked 154th among the 180 countries listed for water availability per person per year while Egypt ranks 156th.
Critics in the East African countries have voiced the desire to do away with the colonial-era pacts that, among others things, prohibit large-scale irrigation or diversion of N ile waters without the consent of Egypt. The merits of renegotiating the Nile treaties are not questionable, given the inequalities perpetuated. What is lamentable, however, is the failure of some riparian countries to manage the water resources from Lake Victoria such as the case of Kisumu City in Kenya attests.
On November 4, the MD of Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company (KIWASCO), Gordon Olando, was sent packing on a compulsory leave after it was revealed he authorised water treatment with chemicals that posed risks to human health.
Paradoxically, what’s happening in Kisumu underlines the moral of the African saying that “scarcity is the mother of human innovation”. Whereas the less-endowed and desert states downstream have grown wiser in their use of the scarce natural asset, the same can’t be said of their upstream counterparts whose abundant reserves of water are degraded by municipalities.
This moral dilemma is put succinctly by Chris Owala of the ad vocacy group Kisumu Water Watch. Commenting on the KIWASCO controversy, he noted, “It is a sad state of affairs that our municipality mismanages the waters of the lake and the majority of Kisumu residents can’t access water which is pumped right here from the lake. But they are also the biggest polluters. Kisumu Municipality has turned the Gulf of Winam into one giant septic tank!”
Though the case of Kisumu —which draws 80% of its water supply from Lake Victoria — is the more spectacular, virtually all the urban authorities ringing the lake like Entebbe, Bukoba, Kampala, Musoma, Mwanza, Jinja and Homa Bay have chronic tap water crises as well as using the lake to discharge tonnes of raw human waste instead of treating and recycling it as manure for farming.
In fact, some environmentalists have thought of bringing law-suits against those municipalities as the only way to rescue the world’s second largest fresh water body and its delicate ecosystem.
Sadly, KIW ASCO’s woes come at a time when the lake basin on the Kenyan side, for example, was just starting to pick up the momentum for change.
After decades of economic decay and politics of dissidence, the outlook for renewal in Nyanza Province has never been so good.
This has been reflected nowhere better than the public mood in Kisumu — Kenya’s third largest metropole of 800,000 people with diverse ethnic backgrounds.
Throughout the months of November, the people from the lakeside drew pride and esteem as achievers buoyed by the news of US elections where Senator Barack Obama made history. Obama’s dad hailed from the lake province.
Run as a private company, KIWASCO is owned by Kisumu City Council. It was formed two years ago under pressure from the World Bank and bilateral donors who saw commercialisation as the answer to the perennial water and sanitation crisis made worse by corruption, nepotism and ineptitude. As a new outfit with an agenda for change, KIWA SCO received a loan of Ksh60m from the French Development Agency.
Even the civil societies opposed to the privatisation model felt KIWASCO should be given a chance to deliver, especially as water is one of the key Millennium Goals to reduce global poverty by 2015. The goodwill was enhanced by new openness brought on by the rise to power of President Mwai Kibaki’s coalition government in 2002.
At the end of a tour of
low-income suburbs of Nyalenda and Manyata, where a scheme for improved water supply was unveiled in July, Alain Morel of the World Bank spoke optimistically of Kisumu emerging as a model for effective water governance to the rest of developing countries. Donor countries like Sweden reinforced their urban renewal aid for Kisumu which is seen by Scandinavians as one of the engines for the future of its Lake Victoria Basin regional development policy which targets 22 million people in Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, the majority of whom live below the p overty line.
Kisumu’s agenda for economic revival is now being undermined by the crisis. Entrepreneurs are experiencing difficulties attracting investment opportunities brought by globalisation and liberalisation.
It’s not unusual to encounter the foul smell issuing from broken sewage pipes in the middle of Kisumu’s business district: the car park serving Kenya Airways offices and Nakumat Supermarket is one such eyesore. Lack of affordable water
to low-income households means a lot of time looking for water.
Often, it’s the girl-child traditionally assigned the job of fetching water because of gender bias, thus bearing implications for the education of girls and the country’s universal free education programme. Kisumu suffers one of the highest water-borne diseases like cholera and typhoid.
Many people do not eat in the low-budget restaurants, popular for fresh tilapia and curry simply because of the poor hygiene. Unfortunately, the stigma of Kis umu as a “city of cholera” — made many years ago by eccentric politician Charles Njonjo — seems to have stuck, thanks to the failures of the civic authorities.
The water crisis is not much the lack of knowledge, resources or technology. Neither Egypt nor Sudan has hindered Kisumu to use water for domestic use. Kisumu thirsts simply because of poor leadership in water governance.Published on: Tuesday, 14th December, 2004
Like federo, this problem won't "go away" anytime soon. And, it had better be addressed sooner rather than later, even if we have to change the government to solve it! The 'Pizanti' needs water to live.
" I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins." Philosopher Antony Flew 1922 - .
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