Mantoe Phakathi
SITSATSAWENI, Swaziland, Sep 15 2009 (IPS) – It is break time. A handful of pupils of Sitsatsaweni Primary School are crowded around a 25-litre bucket to wash their hands before tucking into a meal of samp and beans.
Problem half-solved: a solar-powered pump supplies these children water at school but at home, they still go long distances to draw water of dubious quality. Credit: Mantoe Phakathi/IPS
Only nine months ago, washing their hands in copious amounts of water was a luxury the school s 800 pupils could only dream of.
Thanks to a solar-powered water system that pumps about 8,000 litres a day from a borehole, their school now enjoys access to clean water and improved sanitation. The 20,000 dollar project, funded by the Swaziland Nazarene Health Institutions, also supplies the nearby clinic and high school.
Zodwa Nxumalo, the deputy headteacher, recalls that lessons used to be suspended while pupils travelled as far as two kilometres in search of water for the school kitchen.
The water from the streams was dirty, but there was nothing we could do because that was the only option we had, said Nxumalo.
Waterborne diseases such as diarrhoea were the order of the day, because the children were drinking contaminated water both at school and home. The high turnover of teachers and nurses was mainly attributed to the lack of water in the area.
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But now all that is in the past.
David Tembe is chairperson of Sitsatsaweni s community water committee, which manages water issues in the area. He also oversees the water project at the school, which he feels is the most effective water system the community has ever seen.
Unlike the electric pump, the solar-based pump is almost free to run because a solar panel draws energy from the sun to pump water from the ground which is then stored in a tank. Pipes were installed to supply the three institutions (the two schools and clinic), said Tembe.
The community s main borehole is fitted with an electric pump which has not functioned for almost a year. The community failed to come up with the $150 a month needed to pay the electricity bill. Finding seven or eight emalangeni a dollar each month has proven too much for a majority of households in a town stricken with poverty, AIDS and unemployment.
The electric water pump would run for about two weeks in a month and stop because the volatile voltage of the electricity damages the black box (an essential part for the smooth operation of the electric pump), said Tembe. It would take the people from the Rural Water Department weeks to come and fix it while people are without water.
Worse yet, before the water department could fix the pump, the community would have to come up with $100 to replace the damaged part. So the school is overflowing with water, while community members are still relying on the streams and springs for water.
The school authorities are refusing to share the water with the community because they are concerned that this might bring an influx of people with big containers coming to fetch water here, said Tembe.
Nxumalo concurred with Tembe and added that it is unfortunate that the pupils can only have access to safe water at school. Many of them spend long hours seeking water for household use wherever it can be found time they can t spend on homework, or just resting.
Damaged and idle water pumps are a common sight across the country because, says Johannes Ntuli, the clerk of works at the Rural Water Department, communities fail to pay their monthly contributions towards the water scheme.
Although many people would attribute their failure to pay to poverty, I feel it is lack of commitment from the very same people who are in serious need of water, argued Ntuli. I don t understand how families fail to raise a dollar a month for access to clean water because it s not every one who is poor in the community.
Hand pumps and child-powered PlayPumps have also broken down in many communities for lack of maintenance issues. Ntuli said government does not set aside money to fix these pumps on the understanding that users will take care of upkeep.
Although we train communities on how to look after these pumps, for some reason they fail to maintain them, said Ntuli.
According to Jimmy Braithwaite, the director of Agri Pump, a company that manufactures and installs water pumps in Swaziland, many contractors cut corners when installing hand pumps and once the pump breaks down, they don t come to fix it.
It then costs the community more money to get another contractor to fix the pump because one might have to dig up the pump to establish the exact problem, said Braithwaite.
Braithwaite said another advantage of using a solar pump over an electric one is that the former does not pump water as vigorously as the latter.
The solar-based pump runs between six and eight hours a day because it relies on the sunshine to pump water. Therefore, it does not over pump water which is the case with an electric pump resulting in the depletion of the water table, said Braithwaite.
Regarding hand pumps, Braithwaite said these are labour intensive because people have to use force to extract the water.
Just like the play pumps, hand pumps break often and communities are not in a position to fix these, said Braithwaite. Unlike the solar-based pumps, electric and hand pumps are cheaper to install though.
It costs about $3,500 to drill and install a hand pump while electric pumps costs about $6,000.
Communities should not get too excited about solar pumps though, warned Ntuli. He said the solar panels are susceptible to theft because they are in demand for using electric appliances such as radios and TV.
Government tried to install solar-based water pumps in a number of communities but the solar panels were all stolen, said Ntuli. This is why government has continued to install electric pumps in dry areas despite the high power costs.
Ntuli said most these stolen solar panels are sold in neighbouring countries such as Mozambique and South Africa and it is not easy to recover them.
He said another disadvantage of using a solar-based water pump is that no water is pumped on a cloudy day.
While the community figures out the best solution to their water problems, at least the pupils are guaranteed of a scrumptious meal at school every day.