"Only 58 percent of our population has access to clean drinking water.
To increase access to clean water and sanitation, we have allocated
K214.4 billion ($42 million) to the national rural and urban water
supply programme," he said. "These resources will improve current
infrastructure and extend services to underserved areas, particularly
peri-urban areas."
Bupe Kabwe has first-hand experience of life in the areas the minister
refers to. She wakes up at five o’clock every morning to fetch water
for her family in Chipata township, just outside of the country’s
capital Lusaka. The 29-year-old has to walk three kilometres to reach
the nearest pump where she can draw clean water. Government promises
changes are in the pipeline – but Zambians have heard that before.
Water supply in Zambia is highly uneven. According to 2004 statistics
from the World Health Organisation and U.N. Children’s Fund’s Joint
Monitoring Programme, only 40 percent of rural dwellers have access to
safe drinking water, while 90 percent of urban residents have access.
A closer look at the impressive figure for cities reveals further
inequality – like Kabwe, up to 70 percent of the population of the
capital Lusaka live in peri-urban townships where Zambia’s Department
of Energy and Water Development reports only two-thirds have access to
clean water, usually in the form of a communal standpipe.
"It’s not safe for a woman to walk such a distance to collect water so
early in the morning, but the taps are turned off by seven o’clock, and
we cannot go without water the all day," Kabwe complains.
Because they lack access to clean water, many residents of peri-urban
and rural areas have no choice but to use dirty rain water or unclean
water from low streams. Some families have tried to dig shallow wells,
often near pit latrines, not knowing about the health hazards this may
cause.
Sanitation-related diseases including cholera and trachoma are the
second biggest killer of Zambia’s children after malaria. Cholera has
claimed more than 500 lives since November 2008.
Corruption a major obstacle
The 2008 Global Corruption Report by Transparency International, an
organisation that tracks corruption worldwide, took corruption in the
water and sanitation sector worldwide as its focus.
"In developing countries," the report says, "about 80 per cent of
health problems can be linked back to inadequate water and sanitation,
claiming the lives of nearly 1.8 million children every year and
leading to the loss of an estimated 443 million school days for the
children who suffer from water-related ailments.
According to the Zambian Anti Corruption Commission (ACC), Zambia’s
national rural and urban water supply programme which funded the
drilling of boreholes for rural communities, is a prime example.
"Instead of making water available to most of the rural poor, most of
the boreholes were installed on government officials’ private plots,"
ACC public relations officer, Timothy Moon, told IPS.
Another case, which is currently under investigation by the ACC, is a
multi-million government tender to drill boreholes at two public
universities, the University of Zambia (UNZA) and Copperbelt
University, to supply water to the institutions.
The ACC noted irregularities, because the contract was awarded after
only one company tendered for it – a company which is registered as a
food processing enterprise, not an engineering firm.
Reuben Lifuka, president of Transparency International in Zambia,
recommends that to curb corruption in the water sector, government
should put in place legislation ensuring that public-private sector
contracts meet minimum international standards.
"We need transparent budgeting and participatory policy-making so that
we can have public mapping of water pollution, public audits of
projects and access to contract terms and performance reports," Lifuka
demanded.