Audit water project funds, experts advise

By David Kisanga

Twaweza

The government has been advised to urgently audit and evaluate the water project funds to ensure achievement of Big Results Now (BRN).

The advice follows research findings that while spending per person in the water sector has increased by a factor of five between 1999/2000 and 2011/2012, there has been no increase in the figures for access to clean water over the same period.


“To the contrary, between 1990 and 2011, access actually decreased from 55% to 53%,” said the research titled ‘Money Flows, Water Trickles’, released by Twaweza in Dar es Salaam yesterday.

Twaweza said the challenges of water provision continue to be relevant for majority of people with almost 89 percent Tanzanians collecting water from public sources.

According to the revelations, only one out of ten (11 percent) of the people have access to piped or water delivered in their homes.
However, the situation is as it is now despite the fact that every Tanzanian received at least US$57 (roughly 91,200/-) in aid for water between 1995 and 2005.

Ironically the access to water has declined by 1 percent within the timeframe despite the investments.

As for Uganda, every citizen received US$16 (roughly 25,600/-) during the period under review but the access to clean water has increased by 25 percent, according to the study.

While in Kenya, each person received US$17 (27,200/-) during the same period, the access to clean water has increased by 20 percent.
According to Twaweza, majority of Tanzanians still face a lot of challenges in accessing clean water despite paying huge sums of money for this crucial social service.

The study is based on data from ‘Sauti za Wananchi’ conducted on mobile phones
nationally via households representatives on Mainland Tanzania.

Head of Twaweza Rakesh Rajani said stagnation in access to clean water over the last 20 years is also in direct contrast to the trend in the rest of Africa, where the situation has been improving - from 49 percent in the 1990s to 63 percent in 2011.

“Compared with huge investments in the water sector in recent years, there is still a small decrease in access to clean and safe water…,” he stressed.
According to Rajani achieving the ambitious BRN target of 75 percent of the population with access to clean and safe water will require a complete change in practice.

He said that simply increasing the funds for the sector without a robust review of past failures might imply repeating mistakes being done now.
According to the research findings 30 percent of respondents said water is one of the three most important problems facing the country. The other two being economy and health.

Rajani pointed out that despite the target by the government that one should get water within 30 minutes (round trip), the average time taken at the moment is almost an hour (57 minutes). 

SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN