Let us try task force method on use of water in basins, catchment area

The usual idea was to pay a fee as an investor, show it to a water board or district authority and then proceed to invest in machinery to pump out water. In some cases there was diversion by canals, etc.

When this occurs, it is seldom damaging if a canal is properly constructed and thus takes determined amounts of water on a canal that doesn’t spill water to the ground over a lengthy track.

When this involves an earth diversion, the water source risks drying relatively swiftly without the need for climate change effects diminishing the level of the water being harvested.

That is why sourcing water from Lake Victoria to Shinyanga Region followed clear rules entailing the development of well-built canals but guarding against the risk of drying up the lake.

These used to be among several rules of the thumb followed in water use when the situation was decidedly more relaxed than it has since become.

Higher policymaking authorities in the sector are now seeking a long-term strategy to inhibit the destruction of water sources.

Some top officials think that empowering basin water boards to implement conservation plans at water catchment areas in the respective basins would do the job.

But there is a trap in the predictable rules that the boards would follow if the work is done in that they issue licences but do not control the “harvesting” of the water. Just how water access is handled needs to be sorted out in explicit policy.

The overall issue has recently cropped up in the legislature, with MPs concerned with water access pains in urban as well as rural areas.

A question was posed as to what the government was doing to protect water sources in Morogoro municipality, with the respective legislator noting that “human activities” were threatening most water sources.

Implicitly, the idea is to remove such activities, or control the flow of water to most of them. But then this brings up issues relating to equity – as to who has the right to water and who doesn’t – as well as technique, as to how best the precious liquid can be accessed aside from piped water for domestic use, etc.

The relevant ministry, whose most important category of advisers are executives in water supply bodies or being experienced in that field, float the singular idea of ‘supremacy’ of water bodies as the solution.

Yet the issue isn’t just stopping access to water for ‘human activities’ but figuring out how this can best be done.

With the current demands for equipment for wells and canals that don’t harm lakes or rivers, how all this is financed has partially to be included in water pricing.

Just how far different water users on the same scale or differently would change the present setting are things that need a veritable task force to bring usable ideas and regulatory methods that uphold equity and make water access predictable.

Simple regulatory sanctions might increase misuse of water by individuals while board officials look the other way until top level authorities are alerted.

Alternatively, water could become an even scarcer commodity for large tanker operators out to serve members of the public on the streets as obtained previously.

While scenarios of this kind can’t be ruled out as a possibility, the supply/availability and pricing of water ought to be controlled. It is a sufficiently tall order.