Water is a natural endowment to human beings, be rich or poor. Some nations have it in abundance, others in few quantities. For Sierra Leone, the water deposit is 100 %. The nation is blessed with this invaluable gift. The country has numerous rivers as a source of water depots- Kolente, Rokel, Pampana, Sewa, Moa, and Mano. There are gigantic groundwater, Streams, and rains in the nation. As a result of this, some folks even call the nation ‘water world’. Despite this invaluable gift, water is scarce in the heart of Freetown.
Who are to be held accountable for this problem-the government or the people? Residents in Freetown often cast blame on the governments for not taking proactive steps to put the water crisis to rest. From the period when Guma Valley was established-1961- The Freetown population was not significant, so Guma supplied water in Freetown sufficiently. But we saw a different situation when urbanisation started. As it progressed, the city became overcrowded. the entire population in Freetown now exceeded what was expected, roughly over 700,00,000.
The Guma Dam now and the Orugu cannot supply a large number of people because of their insufficient capacities. this led to the large number of folks in Freetown wandering around with large containers to fetch water, Some totes, push wheelbarrows, use okoda, kekeh etc. As a result of water scarcity in the heart of Freetown, young girls, especially teens, are becoming pregnant by the youths and Sugar Daddies. In fact, this phenomenon is the order of the day. Most young girls have to wake up at 5 a.m. to get water before going to school. Some even stayed at running taps until 10 p.m. It is during these moments that young men take advantage of them. They fooled them with monies and other fancy of flashy things. When these have been impregnated, they become teen mothers and they drop out of school most of them are now being neglected by those that perpetuated the act and treated badly by society. This problem is also visible in Government institutions. They exclusively rely on tap water. When they cannot have a water supply via Guma, they purchase water. These institutions do not have a second source of water supply like wells, harvesting of rainwater and boreholes system.
This problem has not been addressed by both governments-APC (past)-SLPP (current), though there had been a lot of partnerships with both international and national organisations on the expansion of the water supply in Freetown. According to a survey conducted, some of the most deprived communities are Mechkem. Tengbeh Town, Dwzark, Grass field, Sino, Allen Town, mountain cut, mount Aureole etc.Although some local organisations have supported financially the construction of several wells, and tap connections but that is not sufficient. More needed to be done for these communities and the people of Sierra Leone. It is at this junction, we are imploring the Ministry of Water Resources to expand water supply to the deprived areas and partner with international and local organisations to help construct more taps, boreholes, etc.