Momodou
Jallow, the Director General of the Public Utility and Regulatory Authority
(PURA) has underscored the importance of access to safe drinking water, arguing
that human activities’ contribution to water pollution is becoming a growing
concern in both urban and rural Gambia.
“Water
is a fundamental human right and a key determinant to a nation’s health,” he
said. “It’s is also a key driver of our economic activities as industries
depend on its availability.” “Despite its importance to our lives, water, when
polluted, poses major health risks to human and animals.” He however added that
water pollution can naturally occur in the ground.
Mr.
Jallow was speaking yesterday at a local hotel in Kololi during the opening of
a two day workshop on Water Safety Planning. Officials said the training is
designed to enable the participants take preventive measures to protect
drinking water (source to end use) from contaminants.
PURA
boss said the training is expected to build the capacities of participants on
how to protect water system from contamination. “Our objectives are to ensure
that consumers are supplied with water that meets the World Health
Organisation’s (WHO) drinking quality standard,” Jallow emphasised.
Alpha
Robertson, managing director of NAWEC, described water as one of the most
important elements of life. “As far as NAWEC is concerned, the services that we
provide should look at both quantity and quality. Everybody knows that in
recent times there have been problems in the water supply; inadequate supplies
in some cases for a long period of time.”
This,
he added, is unacceptable and it is a situation that has long history. “In
addition to that, there have been growing concerns in terms of the quality of
water that we supply. However, this is not only NAWEC because in the rural
areas it’s water resources that supply water.”
NAWEC,
Water Resources and PURA, he went on, should work together in order to have a
coherent strategy and coherent delivery strategy.
“I’m
sure we will be working together to have a national strategy. The problem of
water supply is mostly due to the negligence of the infrastructure and
negligent of the capacity; both human as well as materials that have led to the
situation where we are today.”
According
to him, the reality of The Gambia at the moment is that there’s only one single
water lab – the lab in Abuko under the Department of Water Resources. “A good
water utility must have its own lab. It’s not good to take samples quarterly.
There must be a daily monitoring of the quality of water that we supply and
this is what we intend to do at NAWEC,” he disclosed.
He
maintained that NAWEC, Water Resources and PURA will work together as partners
who have one common interest so that they can achieve the common objective of
providing clean and potable water for the people of The Gambia.
Alieu
Ngum, PURA chairman, board of directors, underscored the importance of the
forum, adding that maintaining good quality and quantity of water supply has
become a global challenge especially in developing countries; “as we move
towards achieving goal six of the U.N SDGs for universal access to clean water
by the year 2030.”
