Kyenjojo residents struggling to access clean water

A resident drawing water from a well in Katooke Sub county.

Kyenjojo, Uganda| AFP |  THE INDEPENDENT |  Residents of Kyenjojo district are struggling to access clean water.

According to the Kyenjojo Chief Administrative Officer – CAO, Samuel Kaija, access to water in the district stands at 69 per cent, but most of these water sources are shallow wells that are prone to contamination.

Some of the Sub Counties that are severely affected include Nyantungo, Nyabuharwa, Bufunjo, Kanyegaramire, Kyarusozi, Kyembogo, Kisojo, Kihuura and Town councils of Butunduuzi and Kyenjojo.

Kaija explains that the problem has been caused by the low water table in the area that has seen most of the boreholes running dry while others stopped functioning due to lack of funds to maintain and repair them.

Mary Kemigisa, a resident of Butunduzi Town Council says that they depend on wells whose water is normally unsafe for drinking.

James Mugume, a resident of Bufunjo Sub-county, notes that majority of them draw water from River Kahompo that snakes through the area but adds that the challenge is that the water is dirty and has a foul smell.

As a part of the solution, Kaija says that they have started repairing 120 non-functional boreholes in the affected Sub counties.

Aheebwa Mugisa, a resident of Nyahama-Bunyonyi in Nyakahama Sub County, where a borehole has already been repaired, welcomes the intervention, saying his village had one shallow well that was serving dozens of residents and there was high contamination of water by the domestic and wild animals.

The chairman of Nkinga Village in Katooke Sub County, Paul Bide Bisoke, says that since their borehole broke down some years back, they have been depending on dirty wells which could cause an outbreak of diseases like typhoid and cholera.

He says that even though the borehole has now been repaired, they need more in their village so that more people can be served because some people are still walking long distances to access the borehole.   

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