Engaging political leadership of East Gonja District on rural water service levels

Published on: 18/04/2012

The Executive Committee is made up of management of the District Assembly, chairpersons of Sub-Committees, Head of Decentralized Departments and Special Committees. The Committee is a powerful and an influential decision making body. As a result, it is an influential change agent to raise the critical issues identified in a baseline study conducted on the level of water services in the district with.

The District Chief Executive, Honourable Mohammed Mumuni and who is also the chair of the Executive Committee in opening statement, noted that water was the topmost priority of the district, and therefore welcomed all efforts aimed at improving the situation.

He was particularly happy about the baseline data, as it provided policy makers of the district with the stark reality of water service delivery situation. He said “with this data, we now know where we are falling short, and as a District Assembly, we would take immediate remedial measures to stem the situation”.

Following a presentation on East Gonja District baseline findings on water services (which can be downloaded below):

• The Committee pledged to be guided by the baseline data when taking decisions on the delivery of  water services in the district
• The Committee  tasked the District Water and Sanitation Team and Planning and Coordinating Unit to prepare an action plan and budget on how to address the low functionality of systems and weak capacity of Water and Sanitation Committees and Water and Sanitation Development Boards in the district for consideration and subsequent approval.
• Data from the study  will be used to respond to a request by UNICEF for list of boreholes that require rehabilitation in the district.
• The Committee pledged to identify and fund the training of promising caretakers as Area Mechanics possibly for all Area Councils to reduce down time of systems to increase the number of Area Mechanics in the district.
• The Committee would take immediate steps to re-orientate communities on the need to take greater responsibility for the operations and management of their water facilities to improve functionality.