Overdependence on nature for water will be our undoing
Today is a good day. It has been raining outside. The ground, which had been thirsty for so long, has had its share of water. Plants, which had been sunburnt, will now blossom. And shortly the sky will erupt into a melodious symphony as creatures celebrate this magnificent act of providence.
The last time we witnessed such a spectacle in Dar es Salaam was when the masika rains ended abruptly in March. Then many months passed without rain, and it was clear that we were facing a season of drought. But people were too busy to notice until power and water outages ended their slumber. By then, they were in for a not-so-smooth ride.
And bumpy it has been. Taps dry for a whole month. People paying hundreds of thousands of shillings for water supplied by bowsers. And the general uncertainty – am I going to get water before my reserve runs out? For a nation that’s famous for the great lakes, its supply of water isn’t that great, is it?
As this mayhem was unfolding, it has been interesting to observe how the government reacted. It has been a show of strength – from the Prime Minister, the responsible minister, and the regional commissioner. Apparently, the hallmark of true leadership is how you react to crises, not how you prevent them from occurring in the first place.
The government first revealed that while Dar needs 544 million litres per day, production has at best been at 520 million litres. Thus, even without the drought, supply didn’t match demand. No wonder some residents are used to going for weeks without water. If you say, “water rationing” they can rightly ask, “which water?”
The government then explained that production has gone down to 460 million litres per day, thus a deficit of 84 million litres per day. The question is, if the deficit is only 15 percent, why is supply cut off 85 percent of the time?
Furthermore, the government directed Dawasa (water and sanitation authority) to find alternative sources of water. A very common-sensical directive, but why wasn’t this done proactively?
Finally, the government demanded that people who were using water upstream, presumably illegally, be stopped. True to character, some Chinese guy was displayed in the media a few days later, allegedly for possessing a machine capable of pumping 1 million litres of water per hour. But was he doing that illegally? What volume was he consuming, and why did this operation had to wait for the minister’s directive? We weren’t told.
This sounded like a poorly crafted movie script rather than a serious government business, wrong? Water is a basic public service, and you expect those entrusted with its delivery to be a bit more up to the task.
But it is what one of those leaders said that I found most interesting. He said, and I paraphrase, “It will take divine intervention to improve the situation.” Admittedly, invoking God in a society known for being overly superstitious is always a political masterstroke, but aren’t we leaving a bit too much to God? What do we wish God to do here? Send angels to dig reservoirs for water storage?
Dar gets its water from the Wami-Ruvu basin, one of nine drainage basins in Tanzania. In terms of water capacity, this is a relatively small basin, but it serves the biggest urban centre in the nation, and experts predict that, without improved water management, it will increasingly struggle to cope.
As a nation, while we are blessed with vast water resources – equivalent to 2.3 million litres per person annually. Unfortunately, most of it goes straight to the ocean for lack of reservoirs. Similarly, while we have vast underground resources enough for 25 cities the size of Dar for generations, only 12 percent is being put to use today. Thus, Tanzanians continue to suffer from no or intermittent supply of water every day.
To ensure reliable supply of water, reservoirs must be built, drought resistant sources must be used, and tunnels must be dug to transfer water from different regions. For that to happen, you need leadership excellence.
Speaking of excellence, there is one nation which has turned management of water resources into an art – Israel. More than half of Israel is desert. So, when they began building a national carrier system in 1953, the idea was to transfer water from the north to the arid south regions. However, as demand increased and drought struck, the Israelis had to think outside the box.
They turned to unconventional sources – seawater and wastewater. They now produce 2 billion litres of fresh water from seawater every day. That is four times what Dar uses. Sixty percent of the water Israelis use is converted water, not water that occurs naturally. They also recycle 90 percent of wastewater, the world’s best.
The Israelis are a great example of not rendering unto God what is Caesar’s to do.
We build schools without water. We don’t have a national water grid. We deprive water projects of needed investment by withholding much of what Parliament has approved for them (40 percent for 15 years). Trillions are spent on vanity projects. Then we say God, really?
We have to be very clear here – the water shortages in Dar and the rest of the country are not an act of nature, but a leadership choice. Since nature doesn’t suffer fools gladly for long, if we don’t get our act together fast, as Tanzania’s population keep on ballooning and resources become scarcer, we will be in for huge surprises in the future.
