Rural communities of Mukono district are facing disruption of their lives to the extent of experiencing family break-ups, suffering poorer health and decline in school attendanceas a result of their boreholes running dry over a period of two years.
In spite of the biggest water plant for serve Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area wich includes Mukono being situated at Katosi in Mukono, there is no immediate plan for connecting piped water to the various rural sub-counties affected by non-functioning boreholes and prolonged dry spells.
The most affected sub counties are Mpunge, Ntunda and Nabaale. These used to depend for safe water on boreholes, which are currently not functioning, according to the reports at the district water department.
Bob Katewu, the Mpunge sub county speaker says people now go for unprotected water sources specifically from Lake Victoria, even as it is also located in a distant place from their residences.
Some residents trek over two to three kilometers to fetch from same water holes where animals directly feed. URN managed to observe some boreholes inMpunge that are chocked in bushes while others are purely rusty.
Katawu has appealed to the district authorities to repair some of the repairable boreholes or convince the government to extend piped water to their areas.
According to him, women together with children spend a whole day at the lake washing clothes, being unable to carry enough water to perform such a duty at home.
He notes that such tendencies have spoilt marriage relationships with men separating from their wives suspecting them to be meeting other men. Besides children miss attending school on the days of fetching water.
Also in the other two sub-counties of Nabaale and Ntunda, residents travel long distances to fetch water from unprotected wells and springs.
Peter Luyiggo, a resident at Ntunda says the situation is always worse especially during dry spells.
The District LC5 Chairperson, Rev. Peter Bakaluba Mukasa wonders how these sub-counties ended up with non-functioning boreholes yet in every budget there has always been money for repair.
He reveals that his executive is undertaking an initiative on works previously done by the technical team to repair boreholes in the most affected sub-counties.
Nonetheless, the District Chief Administrative Officer, James Nkata says the responsibility of repairing some of these boreholes belongs to the residents.
According to him, nonfunctioning boreholes that require service costing less than 500, 000 shillings and this is the responsibility of residents and above that amount, boreholes are to be repaired by the government.
Nkata says they intend to drill more boreholes, especially where the water tables have shifted to a lower level leaving the pump hanging in space since such a challenge cannot be solved byresidents.
