Mary Nagu upbeat on Kishapu water project

SYLIVESTER DOMASA in Dodoma

Ms Mary Nagu

THE Parliamentary Standing Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Water now says it’s happy with the way a project on Lake Victoria waters was designed to benefit Kashapu residents in Shinyanga Region.

The Chairperson, Ms Mary Nagu, who was recently in the region at the head of a parliamentary committee hailed the project as a ‘life saver’ to hundreds of people, especially women who had to struggle every day just to fetch a few litres of the precious liquid.

“We’re very pleased with the completion of this project ... the residents of Kishapu will now smile as they spend less time searching for water,” she said.

The project implemented by ICS, a local organisation now complete, but supply still awaits approval of pump price to be decided by the district authorities and approved by the regulator, Ewura. Kishapu Water Engineer Lucas Said explained that evaluation on the price of the precious liquid is at final approval.

He admitted that despite the completion of the project, residents are still walking miles to access water at the price of 500/- per 20 litres.

But during inspection of the project, the Bunge committee directed the implementing company, ICS to start selling the water at the price of 30/- per litre pending approval from the water regulator, Ewura.

Assistant engineer with ICS, Ms Lucy Charles, revealed that her firm would invest in new technology to connect all the customers and that from now on, customers would access water on prepaid service or “pay as you use.”

“They will buy their own vouchers on demand,” she quipped. ICS spent over 755m/- to implement the project with support from HDIF and UK Aid.