By Isha S. Mansaray
Ahead of the 2023 Presidential and General Elections, a key SLPP stronghold in the Western Area is currently experiencing its worst water crisis ever. If it is allowed to continue, this situation, according to community and other sources, would spell defeat for the SLPP come 2023.
As one of the two Western Area communities the SLPP won during the past election, the other being Lumley, Aberdeen is one of the country’s premier tourist destinations, with thousands of foreign, locals and returnees patronising the area for rest and relaxation.
Community people in Constituency 131 said they have never experienced such devastating water supply issues as they are currently facing. For the 10 years under the Ernest Bai Koroma regime, they reported experiencing regular water supplies, with households and businesses accessing water from their personally installed Guma water taps.
But in a bid to force them to now start buying water, community residents said they are presently experiencing regular water shortages, with the only place to access regular water being the newly installed Guma Water Kiosks or the bowser that patrols the community in an effort to force the water deprived community to patronise these government owned enterprises.
People this medium spoke to said depriving people in the community of 40,743 residents is presenting a bad image of the area and country to the foreign visitors presently staying in the many hotels and guesthouses in the tourist based community.
“What we are seeing is regular water supply slowly and intentionally being phased out to force us to buy water from Guma. This is very bad for a community that never knew what it was like to have regular water supply outages,” said a business owner.
She said in collaboration with water supply business Crystal Clear, the government, through the agency of Guma, is trying to force them into this new way of doing things without considering their financial and other statuses and obligations.
“We are finding it very hard to understand why water is wilfully being rationed; why we feel like there is a phasing out of regular water supplies to our taps, after we are still paying our rates. This is wicked on the part of government especially after three years of poor service delivery on all fronts. We know that we cannot protest this government for fear of being killed on the streets by government’s police officers. But our retaliation would be in the ballot box,” she promised.
The people told that the water kiosks cannot effectively or adequately serve the entire community, and that not everyone in the community can afford to buy water at the kiosks or from the bowser trucks that patrol the community.
A community activist summed up the community’s frustrations by articulating: “I personally voted for this government for a change not for a mere deterioration. After our national dance troupe was partially sold out, I thought of voting for a new government to revive the community, not to kill its remaining glamour. By glamour, I mean the reasons why most people would live in Aberdeen, where in they will consider the availability of electricity supply, water supply and good road network. But stripping off some of its privileges doesn’t only affect the community but the nation as well. During the era of the past government, we never used to have water issues, except if it was a general issue. Water is a basic essential of life; we use it more frequently than any other thing. Building water kiosks and selling water through the water bowsers mean that Guma is intentionally hoarding the water in order to sell it. If not, why not simply and let the water flow so that people can get it directly from their homes? Isn’t that why we pay for it? Isn’t the water they are selling coming from the same dam that is supplying the city? Even if it was not from the same dam, why not use it as a substitution to send the water directly to the community than to sell it? The selling of water especially through the bowsers is for the minority, who are above the average living standard. The average, who constitutes the major part of the country as a whole, cannot afford to buy water from those bowsers as they are very expensive. And for the water kiosks, the water doesn’t usually fill up a quarter of the tanks, and they cannot serve many homes in the community.”
The people said the half-baked excuse that the water shortage is due to the reduction of the water in the dam “is not an excuse when you have it for sale”.
“This country should be aiming for growth, not backwardness.
We should be way past these basic issues by now. There are countries that do not have sources for natural water like Sierra Leone, and they are not having these issues because their governments look for a way forward, not backward.”