Where Are We With Water?

I WOULD like to share my concerns on rural water supply in communal areas.

Rural water supply is a very slow process in the communal areas. The government is slowly setting up infrastructure to deliver water to all corners of our country. The Government has set up two organisations to administer water distribution being Namwater which controls the national water supply and Rural water supply under the Ministry of Agriculture. It has been 19 year since independence but there is only little done in supplying water to all in need. Deep in communal areas there are still no water mains, people are still using wells and water from pans. I believe that it is very cheap and faster to create a water supply network in Namibia for all but our organisations in charge are doing little to solve this problem as if it is some high-tech engineering project. High costs involved will be water pipes, pressure pumps and labour and professional costs, unlike other projects which involve a lot of costs. The communities will be willing to help were ever they can in order to get access to clean and fresh water, they will volunteer to dig pipe channels and offer food, shelter etc as long as they will get fresh water for all. Working with communities is much faster and cheaper, like what happened at the construction of the railway extension in the north. If Rural water supply and Namwater do not have enough labourers they can always outsource to a lot of SMEs specialised in that area at the same time helping SMEs to develop and provide employment opportunity for others. We need to finish with development of water infrastructure and focus on other needs and improvements.It is very unfair for our water bodies to charge water fees in communal areas where access to fresh and clean water is limited. A person will walk 15 kilometers or more to get tap water but is required to pay for that water, and this is unfair. I understand that we do not pay for water but for service and infrastructures. Why are we charging those poor people if we did not set up proper infrastructure and bring the service closer to them? Why in the past during colonial times was rural water free of charge? One wonders why it was free in the communal areas under the colonial regime and why must communal communities pay for water in the independent Namibia. How can we eradicate poverty if we are making the poor poorer? Our areas had lots of water points which were distributed by the SA government but to date all the water points are closed and I don’t know why. Communal farmer’s livestock have no access to fresh and clean water and no other means were put in place to replace the water points. Instead of improving and moving forward we are moving backwards and yet we want to charge the people. Our water bodies in their jurisdiction areas should have constructed more water points and improved those already constructed. We have plenty of water in Namibia and we can also build another water canal from the river if there is a shortage e.g. from Rundu to Okongo.Our government is promoting agriculture as it is the only way to reduce poverty, create mass employment, improve our economy and become agriculturally self sufficient and this will happen only if upcoming communal farmers have access to fresh water, if proper infrastructure is put in place. We will not grow nor improve if water remains a problem and a limiting factor to date. The Ministry of Agriculture should order these water bodies to step up their game and fasten to provide and improve water infrastructure countrywide.We also need to keep the flood water in the country and we can use that water for agricultural crop production in the north. If we can construct a clear river channel that will lead flood water to a dam and trap it there for use by the nearby communities to cultivate and grow crops, create rice pans etc we will provide self employment for local farmers, reduce our food imports, reduce poverty and generate income. If our water bodies are too slow to provide services and take no initiative in the supply of water to communal areas then our rural communities will remain below the breadline.Ben Shigwedha Via e-mail