Students Call On Gov’t Intervention As Water Shortage Hits Freetown
Thousands of school going pupils from various schools across the country has raised serious concerns over the alarming shortage of pipe borne water or water wells in the country ahead of the raining season and therefore call on government intervention to address the situation before it get out of control.
Speaking to this medium, students who are preparing to take their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for 2018 told this correspondent that they are suffering to access water on a daily basis for domestic utilization adding that the shortage of water has affected them with their studies by waking up early or going to bed late just to fetch water from dangerous zones that are full of bad guys who violated our rights to freedom of movement.
The irritating students emphasized on the constraints of fetching water from various source or point especially in the month of Ramadan with long queues on a daily basis and emphasized on the way and manner the acute water shortage has affected their learning process with no ample time to study their notes.
“We are always under pressure to access water for domestic purposes and that we are losing a lot of time to read our books”, one of the students confessed.
They spoke about the heavy charges imposed on them by tap owners whenever there is water shortage and mentioned that women and girls succumbed to sex for water.
They charged Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC) for not working to meet the demand of the growing population for the past decades despite the robust water regulations being put in place by the erstwhile Minister of Water Resources to increase water supply.
The dissatisfied students therefore appealed to the new government under the leadership of President elect, Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio to address the issue of water shortage across the country as water is a universal solvent and life cannot exist without it.
However, other concerned citizens raised similar sentiment over the same water shortage crisis which they said was not rampant during the past administration of former President, Dr. Ernest Bai Koroma.
The new Minister of Water Resources, Dr. Tengbe has been urged to quickly address the alarming state of water crisis in the country adding that many students have dropped out of school due to persistent water shortage in various communities.
By Alhassan Bangura
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