Cleaner, safer water for Kasese

By Agnes Nantambi and John Thawite

A sh3.617b gravity flow water supply scheme has been commissioned in Kasese district to provide safe and clean water for over 63,000 people.

The Mpondwe-Lhubiriha water project is located in Bukonzo county near the border of Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was co-funded by the European Union, the Austrian and Uganda governments.

The project, which is expected to last over 20 years, was constructed under the Water and  Sanitation Development facility of south-western Uganda in the Ministry of Water and Environment.

It was commissioned by the Minister of Water and Environment, Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, at Mpondwe Primary School recently.

Kamuntu warned the excited residents against environmental degradation, especially along the Lhubiriha river and on the Rwenzori mountain ranges, which support the water scheme.

He commended the European Union and the Austrian government for supporting the project and urged the residents to plant trees so as to sustain the environment.

“Those hills must be covered with trees or else the water supply scheme we are commissioning here will be a waste of time. Water is life, but we take it for granted. In some places, people pray for it, but in Uganda, some people pray for the rains to stop,” Kamuntu said.

The Minister of Defence, Dr. Crispus Kiyonga, who is also the area MP, wondered why some  people in Kasese vote  against the NRM despite the various development programmes that have been implemented in the district.

“We often get embarrassed when we are asked why there is so much opposition here when the Government is injecting billions of shillings into developing the district,” Kiyonga said.

He observed that extending piped water to the UPDF barracks in Kasese would promote  health and hygiene among the soldiers and their families.

The resident district commissioner, Milton Odongo, said those who say the NRM government is bad should repent so that their sins are forgiven.