February 17, 2021
By: Mohamed M. Sesay (Lucky)
As the popular adage goes, ‘’water is life’’, the Courier has been tempted to do a comprehensive situational analysis, and a non-participant observation into the good and the bad of Guma Valley Water Company operations during the period of 2020. I most chiefly commend the current leadership of Guma Valley Water Company for his stanched and unwavering commitment in transmogrifying clean water supply to communities across the Western Area, amidst the unprecedented growth of population within the radius and Circumference of Guma Valley jurisdiction. Since its establishment in 1961, Guma Valley Water Company is charged with the responsibility of providing sustainable water supply for public and private purposes In the Western Area of Sierra Leone.
In a virtual interface with the Communications Manager at the Guma Valley Water Company Alie Kabba, I was awash with some of the goodies that Guma Valley set to achieve at the start of 2020, which include but not limited to; Increase Access to Water Services; Improve on Sustainability; Protect the Water Catchments and Deliver on the Strategic Projects. Even though it has remained undisputed that the water supply situation for residents within the Western Area has been a perennial challenge, evidential proofs were provided for my perusal which amicably justified that indeed Guma Valley Water Company implemented the following activities gearing towards ameliorating accessibility of water supply within the Western Area.
Moreover, in ensuring an efficacious rationing of Water Supply to Areas like East, Central and West on an average of 4–6 hours on a daily basis, it is unequivocally lucid that Guma Valley Water Company again undertook extensive leakage control exercises by “declaring war on spaghetti connections in many communities in Freetown, thereby reducing the number of bursts and leakages in the system. Just in case one wants to make a visibility study within the Central part of Freetown, one can fathom the truism in the replacement of those spaghetti pipes which has really restored sanity in terms of leakages in Guma pipes. I am equally with a firmed credo that the replacement of leak pipes, has in turn increased the amount of water availability in the system leading to restoration of water supply to many areas that had previously gone without water supply for so long.
Also part of the 2020 goodies and success stories of Guma Valley Water Company, the Water Company Completed and commissioned the Government funded Aberdeen – Lumley Beach Road Water Supply Project which restored water supply to Freetown’s most attractive touristic area in February 2020; Commissioned and handed over the IMATT Community Water Supply Project which is currently benefitting about 20,000 persons resident in the IMATT and Hill Cut Road Bridge communities funded by the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office in October 2020; Launched and Handed over work sites for the rehabilitation of the Guma Babadorie Treatment Plant at Regent and laying of submains in the Mortormeh to Kaningo communities under the Freetown Emergency Recovery Project funded by the World Bank; Tombo Water Supply project funded by UNICEF is nearing in completion and will soon serve over 40,000 population in the fishing village when completed; and also launched the Mambo and Waterloo Water Supply projects with support from Government of Sierra Leone in December 2020, which will greatly improve on the access to water supply in these communities;
As also party of the unquantified 2020 goodies of Guma Valley Water Company, the self-styled Water Company has rehabilitated 86 Community Water Tanks with support from UNICEF and put back into service; Connected 40 Community Water Tanks to the Guma pipe network with support from World Vision and Maintained over 40 Solar Powered Boreholes in various communities across the Western Area all in the view of expanding and assuring access to water supply within its mandated jurisdiction.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Result Based Financing program which ended in July 2020, gave a euphoric gratification to Guma Valley Water Company as it was dubbed as a brilliant program meant to resuscitate a resource-starved utility company like Guma Valley. The program lasted for 12 months and during that period, I was comfortably told that Guma was able to raise its monthly revenue collection from an average of Le 1.8 Billion to Le 2.5 Billion. The Company was also able to lay 11.5km of pipe line of various sizes to replace the numerous spaghetti pipes that are causing huge wastages for the company; 897 saddle connections were done and 1,710 leakages were repaired.
On the area of Catchment Protection, Nature-based solutions have significant yet untapped potential in the Western Area, and Guma Valley Water Company, recognises an important role for natural infrastructure in the attainment of Sustainable Development Goal 6: to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. As a regulatory frameworks for managing water resources continue to be strengthened, Guma’s strong motivation to apply nature-based solutions in catchment management is clearly manifested through its active engagement with water and land resources agencies and users across the Western Area in the year 2020. Regulatory frameworks to support catchment management was said to be in place, but not effectively enforced for compliance. This situation has led to water quantity and quality degradation at most of the company’s abstraction points. Compliance needs to be ensured to protect public health, water security and reduce production costs for the water utility.
Having scrutinized the operation of Guma Valley Water Company during the period 2020, I am now left with an immeasurable satiation that indeed, Guma Valley under its current leadership, has started living up to the people’s desirous anticipation in terms of access to water supply. However, despite the commendable effort made by Guma in the fight against wastages, increasing access to water supply, the problem has not yet been fully addressed. There are still a few communities such as Grafton experiencing little or no access to Guma Water supply facilities, whilst other areas are also faced with huge water wastage, particularly along the Peninsula. In an overall assessments based on physical visibility studies and response from the Communications Manager at Guma Alie Kabba, I think an impressive work was done by Guma in 2020 and therefore grade them 70 over 100% their firmed commitment.
Now the Focus of Guma 2021 as articulated by Guma Valley is segmented into three-tier approaches. The first focus for Guma Velley 2021 will again include a War on Spaghetti Pipes, targeting communities in Goderich, Hamilton, Lakka, Sussex, Mile 12, Mile 13, etc. The second focus for Guma in 2021 is to increase access to water supply in communities that currently have no infrastructure: Malama, Kamayama, Lumley Regent Road, Hill Station, IMATT, Waterloo, Angola Town, John Obey, York, No.2 River, Baoma in Goderich, Kent, Russel, Tokeh are pragmatic examples of communities without an infrastructure for water supply. And the Third and final focus of Guma Valley is to improve Revenue Generation in order to enhance an improved sustainability of the water supply. The Communications Manager also reaffirmed Guma’s vim and vigor in increasing the number of household connections and reduce the number of illegal service connections, and implement a new approved tariff.
