Ongwediva
The water situation at Okankolo is reported to have worsened of late, as the majority of the boreholes on which the community heavily depends are malfunctioning or have completely dried up.
Following erratic rains over the past three years, not enough water has collected in the boreholes to sustain the community.
Constituency Councillor Joseph Imbili says 75 percent of people in his community get water from boreholes; only 25 percent of the community has access to clean potable water.
In addition, he related that due to the breakdown of some boreholes, the villagers are forced to travel up to 40 km to access water. The average distance between boreholes in the constituency varies between 15 km and 20 km.
The situation in the constituency has forced the management of Ohaimbada Combined School to send home 18 Grade 9 learners, who were camping at the school. The school has a population of 262 in total.
The learners were camping at the school to prepare for Grade 10 examinations and to reduce the vast distances they have to travel to school. However, since the borehole at the school broke down, they were told to return home on Wednesday.
“The borehole at the school has not been properly working since last week and on Tuesday this week it could no longer be used,” one of the learners said.
Cllr Imbili said at the moment the water situation in the constituency is tense, because even the livestock have no access to water. Attempts to dig 14 additional boreholes to reduce the trekking distance did not yield results.
Imbili said that although the boreholes have already been dug, the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry is yet to install them. The Office of the Prime Minister – through the Disaster Risk Management Fund – funded the drilling of extra boreholes.
Further attempts to connect smaller pipelines from the main water pipeline of the rural water supply line to extend water to the local community also did not yield positive results, as the pressure is too low.
Imbili said his office has in the past few months through the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry resorted to delivering water tanks to various villages. However, that has not been happening over the past two months, as the truck had a breakdown and was only repaired recently.
Imbili acknowledged that his office has not been able to reach out to the whole community, but: “We have tried our best.” He called on the office of the regional education directorate to step in to assist schools struggling with water, in order to keep the learners at school.