Akwoyo protected spring in Ngetta Sub-County, Lira district badly needs a touch up. But rather than collect the funds required for the repairs, users are waiting for the area Member of Parliament to provide help.
Published on: 12/02/2012
The thought of a clean, safe, rural water source brings to mind images of pure water, flowing from a sparkling clean pipe, surrounded by well tended gardens, with users patiently waiting for their turn in straight queues. When I think about safe water sources, I never imagine pools of stagnant water, nor muddy puddles layered with algae and all sorts of litter. But that may be a dreamer’s mind at work!
A visit to Akwoyo spring well, paints a different picture altogether. Serving about 400 households, Akwoyo spring well is considered one of the safer sources in Tebung Anywomorem village, Ngetta sub-county in Lira district. This has been the main source of water in this area since the 1980s. In 2008, Uganda Red Cross Society intervened and turned it into a protected spring. Four years down the road, the well needs a touch up. Huge cracks have developed, the soak pit is filled up, the surroundings are littered with polythene papers, sugarcane husks…..even cow dung.
When I visited the well on the sizzling afternoon of 18th January 2012, the scene was bustling with activity. No one seemed to be bothered by the state of disrepair. Children were playing; women were doing laundry and others were washing dirty jerry cans; someone had just washed a pile of kitchen utensils. The outlet pipe was almost fully immersed in stagnant water but a young girl was happily filling her jerry can, with her legs covered in water up to the knees.
But things could be better at Akwoyo well, if the users put a little more effort. In 2011, IRC/Triple-S Uganda in conjunction with SNV and Makerere University introduced the Mobile Phone for Water (M4W) initiative, through which community members can report a fault using short message services (SMS). During the baseline study, the Hand Pump Mechanic (HPM) of Ngetta reported the deplorable state of Akwoyo spring well and advised community members to raise money for materials to repair the well. The whole job required about UGX400,000 (US$ 150). That was in November 2011. Three months down the road, not even a shilling has been collected.
And why, one wonders, is it not possible for 400 households to raise four hundred thousand shillings? Some of them argue that the amount is far beyond what the community can manage and so they need the intervention of the district. But no one among the users has reported to the sub county authorities! Moreover, the users never pay user fees, which means the Water User Committee does not have any start up funds in their coffers.
Mzee Okwe Oteng, 57, has a ready answer to all these unanswered questions. “We are waiting for our Member of Parliament Hon. Sam Engola. I am sure if we told him our need he would come to our aid,” Oteng says assuredly. The same view is echoed by 23-year old Okello Nyerere. Oteng and Nyerere are brewers, whose business requires drums-full of clean safe water, but they can’t be bothered about the untended village well.
I leave Akwoyo spring well wondering what is the least that the users can do as they wait for Uncle Sam.
