Fingers were pointed and voices were raised at a recent meeting between the residents of Matam district in the capital Conakry and Cheikh Sylla, the director-general of the Guinean Water Company (SEG), which is responsible for managing the capital’s water supply.
What was intended as an exchange of views soon deteriorated into a shouting match.
“I get up at 2 a.m. every day to go and fetch water and usually when I get to the pump, it isn’t working! So I have to get it on the black market. It costs US$0.14 for 20 litres,” shouted one outraged resident. “And even then, I still receive water bills for water that never comes!”
Yomba Kande, the chief of Matam, was also angry. “Why is it that some people in this city have enough water to wash their cars, yet my family can’t find enough water to drink from one day to the next?”
But Sylla said the residents themselves were equally to blame.
“How are we supposed to manage water supply in this city when people are illegally diverting water channels to their homes and businesses and not paying for it?” he asked.
“How are we supposed to provide water when people are not paying their water bills? What are we to do when people build their houses along water channels so that those channels no longer work?”
And, raising his voice, he added, “Water here is less expensive than Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso and there the people pay but here you refuse. Why?”
 Photo: Anna Jefferys/IRIN  |
| A water pump in a Conakry suburb. Water committees monitor the condition of pumps throughout the city because so many are damaged or stolen. |
Under half of Conakry’s residents have access to regular running water – the rest must make do with broken pumps or erratic electricity supply meaning pumps work erratically, while some have no water pipes at all to feed their areas.
And despite years of trying, gravity is still defying the government’s attempts to pump water to the thousands of residents living in Conakry’s hilly districts.
In rural areas the situation is worse, with just over a third of residents able to regularly access water. Poor water and sanitation throughout the country contributes to regular outbreaks of endemic diseases. Guinea, which could be one of the richest countries in Africa due to its generous bauxite reserves, is one of the poorest in the world, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
While an estimated 500,000 cubic metres of water is needed by the city’s two million inhabitants every day just 130,000 cubic metres currently flows to people’s pumps and taps.
As a result up to a million residents are forced to access their water from wells dotted around the sprawling city’s residential areas, or to buy it on the black market. And many thousands illegally tap into water channels, diverting them for their own use and drying up the city’s supply.
With very few water meters available, some residents forge ‘agreements’ with their local water supplier to estimate usage, dwindling SEG’s investment base and creating ‘false bills’ and ultimately, a false economy, according to numerous sources.
“There are serious weaknesses in the billing and collection systems which mean some people end up not paying their water bills,” said Siyaka Bakoyoko, manager of the World Bank in Guinea. “In the absence of a metering system, there could be a lot of guessing going on.”
Under-investment
Sylla admits fraud is occurring within SEG itself. “It’s a question of structural management. SEG agents will take money to divert water to individual customers for a fee. We have to address this but we can’t do it without pouring more money into the system.”
According to him donors have neglected Guinea’s water sector over the past decade, and with US$217 million needed to get the sector back on track, the government does not have the means to do it alone.
But he is not optimistic of receiving the funds. “We don’t have a hope of receiving all that we need,” he said.
A representative from one international donor agrees. “The government doesn’t have the capacity to meet the people’s water needs. There is next to no investment in the water sector. Half of the pumps are running on generators that don’t work. Very few major donors are getting involved in it and without big money the government can’t do half of the things it needs to do.”
“And nobody wants to pay,” the donor official added.
The government ran a series of water investment projects starting in 1992, but these were interrupted in 2000 because they ran out of funding.
Lack of money has meant rather than building the required 250 km network of new pipes just a few kilometres have been built here and there, and “because of this our production capacity has not increased at all,” Sylla told IRIN.
Addressing leaky management
But in a vicious cycle, donors and the private sector will only step in with significant amounts if management problems are taken care of first.
“Investing in infrastructure will only be efficient once the situation has been stabilised with stronger management systems in place, and that could take a few years to achieve,” said Bakoyoko.
This involves improving SEG’s management – in particular its ability to address billing problems, and to reduce the amount of water diversion and leakages.
However, recognising the city is facing a water crisis, the World Bank has recently changed tack and is investing to improve water sector management until 2015.
UNICEF is also working to support community water committees throughout the capital to help minimise water theft and destruction of pumps, and scrutinise the government’s water management.
Meanwhile some donors are going ahead with projects to extend the system, despite weak management. Japan is investing in pipeline infrastructure and China may help finance the country’s sixth dam, while France gave US$3.2 million to build pumps and several water treatment centres.
And SEG is trying to improve its own standards. “We have to fight fraud in the water system,” said Sylla. But for him city dwellers have to help SEG turn around the situation.
Closing the meeting with residents of Matam, he made a plea. “You have to help us to get rid of our water problem. If we don’t do it together, our future will be very complicated.”
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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
