This budget year, the government has planned to implement various development ventures. Among others supplying clean water sufficiently to citizens can be mentioned. Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Electric is the pertinent institution which has the major stake in this regard.
Dr Beshah Mogesse is Water Development Commission Commissioner in the Ministry. As to him, the nationwide water supply has raised to 75.9 percent. The Second Growth and Transformation Plan indicated that, the different approaches are formulated for urban and rural part of the country in supplying clean water.
In rural parts, the plan aims at supplying 25 litter to one person per day within one kilometer distance, while in urban centers, within short distance in accordance with the town level of development, the plan envisages supplying from 40 to 100 litter water to each household per day.
Based on these plan currently, water supply in rural parts is to attain to 78.7 percent, while in urban centers to hit the 65.5 percent mark.
As compared to the rural parts the achievement in urban center is lesser because at the beginning of the implementation of the plan, the level of the water supply of the big towns was only from 20 to 30 litters.
In the first GTP, the plan to supply rural part was 15 litter water but it was revised in the second GTP and replanned to supply to 25 litter.
According to Beshah Mogesse ,the supply of 65 litter water to towns does not mean that the rest 35 percent of the population is unreached. Rather it indicates that, how the supply is going on as per the targeted standard level . All the nation water supply programs are carried out by one Wash program. The program comprises stakeholders from private and public sectors engaged in water exploring and supplying work since 2003GC.
For successful accomplishmenta Memorandum orandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministry of Water Irrigation and Electric, Ministry of health, Ministry of Education and Ministry of Finance. They are committed to the common objectives.
As to Beshah, the urban water supply project doesn’t include big towns such as Addis Ababa, Bahir Dar, Mekele and Awassa because these towns are regarded as autonomous to implement their own water supply projects with their own budget, technology , finance and human resources. The one Wash program comprises only small and medium size towns. Towns which have residents from 20 to 100 thousands and regarded as medium and the regional governments have the mandate to secure loan on behalf of them for their water supply projects.
Towns which have residents less than 20 thousand are categorized as small and have no capacity to generate the necessary revenue for water projects. Hence, they are subsidized similar to the rural water supply project by the regional governments and totally 62 towns are categorized as small towns.
Currently studies are undergoing to raise their revenue generating capacity so that in the future they will allocate their own money for project accomplishment.
Nine Towns will be beneficial from this budget year projects and the rest will benefit in the next three years accomplishment.
According to the plan, in the coming five years, the rural water project targets to construct 3724 new water supply points.
And 1630 water supply points that are not currently functional will be repaired. The new project will be implemented with 309 woredas. It is understood that, some water supplying points fail to generate water in the drought season. Hence, the new construction will consider this and will overcome problems that arise due to climate variability. And drought resilient projects will be implemented.
The government has tried its level best to meet the demand of water through mobilizing local finance and secured loan from abroad but because of population increment, still the gap between demand and supply is not bridged. Paradoxically, studies indicated that out of the produced clean water, 39 percent of it is wasted .Such situation in a poor country such as Ethiopia is unaffordable.
Similarly, delay and improper construction of the projects negatively affects the efforts to meet the demand. Hence, though contractors and consultants they run their companies to gain profits , they should work up to their civic duty.
The Ethiopian Water Technology Institute Deputy Executive Director Ajanaw Fenta on his part said that, to accomplish the annual plan of the water supplying projects, providing capacity building to all stakeholders is essential. Cognizant of this, his institution has planned to provide trainings to professionals engaged in 19 various water sector professions for more than 46 times.
Depending on the subject matter, the training will be provided for two and four weeks at various administrative levels.That is to say, from state to the woreda level. The training comprises underground water exploring and drilling, surface water development, water resource administration, maintenance of water infrastructures, supervision of wastage in the utilization of water resources, ethical supervision and follow up and other trainings related to water supply , protection and management.
The training will be provided in two ways. The first one is based on the institute plan. It will be provided to the public water enterprises engaged in deep water drilling. As the institute is the only entity entitled to provide such type of training, it includes the private sector. The cost of the training will be covered by the institute.
The second approach is providing training to institutions both from public and private sector as per their demand and application.
In addition to that, the training will be given to the technical and vocational institutions. Here the training first will be given for managers and trainers. The training materials will also be allotted by the institute.
As it is known, water is essential for multipurpose including household need, sanitation, Irrigation, industry and other service providing organizations like hotels. However, the venture of exploring, drilling and supplying require more money, technology and human resource. Therefore, to fulfill the gap, mobilizing domestic and foreign assistance is vital.
Ethiopian Herald Sunday edition January 19/2020
BY ABEBE WOLDE GIORGIS
