Freetown and its environs were last week hit by the acute shortage of water supply, which saw residents running up and down with containers searching for water.
Even places like Aberdeen Village and other communities in the west of the capital, where residents have been enjoying considerable water supply, became desert grounds.
During the recently concluded three-day lockdown, residents in communities like Kissy Dockyard in the east of the city, Manjay Town, Spur Road, IMAT in the far West and New England in central Freetown complained that they went without water and or electricity supplies for days.
On the third day, residents, particularly in the east of the capital who could not endure further, ventured out in their numbers in search of water. Some unprofessional security personnel who were expected to have displayed some amount of professionalism in the circumstance, reportedly compounded the situation even more by chasing the angry water fetchers out of the streets.
According to the Director General of the Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC), Maada Kpenge, the company decided to ration the water throughout the three-day lockdown period on an hourly basis. He however highlighted challenges the company faced during the period particularly in what he referred to as hard-to-reach areas. He therefore advised that the only remedy was for security personnel to allow residents in those areas to come out in an orderly fashion to fetch water.
Other communities that are without infrastructures for water supply, he said the company had since been supplying them water on a commercial basis and that the community buys 10,000 litres of water for Le150,000, which is sold to residents at Le1,000 per three ‘batas’ (3 sets of five gallons). He however expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that some Community Tank Managers refused to pay the company for the supply.
However, the situation has become even more compounded and it is not yet known what strategy GVWC is going to put in place to salvage the appalling situation, going forward.