2.7bn/- to improve water service in Mpwapwa District next year
THE government through Rural Water and Sanitation Agency (RUWASA) has planned to use 2.7bn/- for 15 water projects in various areas around Mpwapwa District in the financial year 2023/24.
Speaking to water stakeholders recently in a session aimed at evaluating the implementation of water projects and the provision of clean and safe water services in Mpwapwa, RUWASA District Manager Eng Cyprian Warioba said the implementation of water projects aims at improving access to clean and safe water.
He noted that the number of people who access clean and safe water service until January 2023 were about 248,727 people equivalent to 65.05 per cent of the estimated total number of 320,891 population of Mpwapwa District.
“48 out of 113 villages in Mpwapwa District do not have access to clean and safe water service hence their dwellers are forced to use unsafe and unclean water from gullies or from natural sources,” he said.
He explained that the government has been allocating funds to solve water service challenges every year where in 2022/23 the government implemented a total of 7 water projects in Mtera, Pwaga-Maswala-Munguwi and Itende villages.
“Other villages that have benefited from the project are Lupeta-Makutupa, Igoji-I, Chinyika, Mlunduzi and Kisokwe-Idilo, as well as the project to improve water infrastructure in Kibakwe Village, both the projects cost 9.2 bn/-” said Eng Warioba.
The Mpwapwa District Commissioner Sophia Kizigo said in order to overcome the problem of environmental degradation in water sources, RUWASA should recruit young rangers who will be given special training to protect water sources in order to save a lot of money invested and allocated by the government.
“In order to be able to protect water sources we must find a way that will help to secure this government money invested in these water projects so that they can show productivity by finding young people who will be given special training to protect our water sources and being paid a small allowance so that they can afford costs of life,” she said.
Kizigo said that there must also be a campaign of planting trees so as to protect water sources and save the government’s high investment costs in water projects.
On her part, a water stakeholder from the Non-Governmental Organisation, Water for People Tanzania (WFPT) Rehema Turkai said that as stakeholders WFPT is ready to support the government’s efforts in implementing various interventions aimed at improving access to clean and safe water as well as environmental sanitation.
She also called upon the community to ensure that they continue to protect the environment by coming up with a specific strategy to protect and manage environmental and sanitation laws.
