FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)
9 November 2009
opinion
It goes without saying that no one would like to see a repetition of the mistakes made in a previous lots where there were cases of wells dug in place of boreholes to be drilled; cases such as at Banico Ismaila Primary School URR where a Borehole was contracted to be dug, but where another well, barely 5(five) meters away, was already dug.
These cases underline the fact that effective and competent supervision was lacking. Needless to say, a borehole is different from a well. In the former case, the circumference would never be more than 60(sixty) cm; and elements such as dry-digging and wet-digging do not apply. At the very least we should come up with a sound plan geared towards the drastic curtailment, if not the containment, of water shortage. As readers will recall we used to have fresh water up to Balingo now where is the fresh water?
As I saw it then just as I see it now, the answer lies in two main approaches, namely Technical and Administrative Management.Under technical, we have to consider having trained man power in our water supply system. These would include technicians who can dig or rehabilitate wells satisfactorily; tend competently to boreholes, etc. at present, not enough of such skilled personnel are available. Thus, training should be a priority for those technicians who afready in the system. Indeed, the need for technical assistants to train personnel in sufficient numbers for thiscritical area of the system,cannot be overemphasized. The UN system as well as the NGO community would only too willing to assist in this regard.
More complex, however is the Administrative Management Approach. In my view, it is wrong in the first place for the Department of Water Resources (DWR) at the apex of the system to be lumbered with, as it were, so much responsibility that it seems to be acting perforce the part of the judge, the jury and the prosecutor rolled in one Nonetheless, a lot of adjustment still remains to be made. For example, the supervisory role they play over the construction of wellls and boreholes needs to be revisited. At all events, since the order of the day is decentralization, the local authorities viz the 6(six) area councils and the 2(two) municipalities of Banjul and Kanifing, should take full charge of wells and boreholes in their areas of jurisdiction. This would, of course, again mean that they should also have trained manpower to handle the responsibility.. DWR would then only rightfully play the role of advisor and coordinator to the local authorities.
As advisor DWR, acting on the feed back from its divisional inspectors, would be in much better position to take an overview of the well-digging and borehole activities going on throughout the Gambia and as coordinator, DWR would be in a position to collect data and produce and annual report(s) on vital information on the nations water supply. We would then for example, be in a position to know, for sure, how much water has been extracted from our ground-water and sea water gauging what the statistics are in the various areas of the Gambia.
Above all, the Agriculture Department, in particular will get a tremendous boost. Instead of the ribbon development going on presently, we shall soon have a systematically planned development based as it were on concrete information supplied by the local authorities via DWR to the Agricultural Department. Beside, it is common knowledge that wells and borehole are dug and sunk respectively without the knowledge of DWR; and for that matter, without the knowledge of our local authorities. Equally true, quite a number of wells and boreholes and cattle troughs are in a bad state of repair, if not downright unusable today, for lack of technical know-how or neglect of maintenance or both. Such an unsatisfactory and dysfunctional state of affairs will, with the implementation of my suggestion, thus die a natural death.
A stitch in time saves nine says the sage.
Ebou. C. Faal
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