Huye 18,000 Households get access to clean water after the Extension of Water Supply Networks

A total of 18,000 households from Huye, Rusatira, Kinazi, Ruhashya, Rwaniro Sectors of Huye Districts and Save Sector of Gisagara District, Southern Province have got access to clean water following the completion of the project on “Rehabilitation, Upgrading and Extension of Water Supply networks”.

This project financed by African Development Bank (AFDB), was implemented by WASAC from February 2019 to June 2021. It resulted in the construction of 133.8 Km pipelines, 16 reservoirs with the capacity of 3860m3, 24 water Kiosks, 40 single taps, 22 double taps, and 2 pumping stations, and 500 poor families were connected to water free of charge.

Residents of the aforementioned areas have been facing water shortages, especially in dry season. They used to fetch water from valleys on long distances, something that was affecting their lives. Addition to this, sometimes they were supposed to pay much money to get water.

Nikuze Liberata from Sovu Cell in Huye Sector and Mwemerashyaka Onesphore from Kimuna Cell, Rusatira Sector currently fetch water from one of the constructed public taps.

“Due to incessant water scarcity, we have been fetching dirty water from valley which is at a distance of 3 km from our homes.  We used to pay 150 Rwfs per jerrycan but now we only pay 20 Rwfs to get clean water which is near homes. It is easy to find drinking water and water for our livestock”, said Nikuze.

“Due to long queues of people at the sources in valleys, some people could spend the whole day seeking water and end up without it, especially in dry season. But water scarcity issues have been fully addressed, and we no longer suffer from intestinal worms as we have safe drinking water. We are grateful to our president for these water infrastructures”, Mwemerashyaka said

Mukandutiye Alvera and Ndagijima Théophile with disability are among the poor families connected to water free of charge.  They said that they are very happy for getting water at their homes as they did not expect it; there were no water networks and they were not able to pay water connections.

“It was a miracle getting water at homes, we have never dreamt getting it in our lives. We are thankful to the visionary leadership, and very happy for having enough clean water that we use for cooking, drinking and washing”, said Mukandutiye.

Xavier Rwibasira, the SPIU Coordinator at WASAC said that the project was initiated with aim to boost water supply in different sectors of Huye District as a Secondary and growing city.

“There was water rationing in some sectors due to insufficient water supply networks. So we have constructed 133.8 Km pipelines and other infrastructures to boost water supply, especially in Rwaniro sector where there wasn’t any water network”, He said.

The project enabled Kadahokwa Water Treatment Plant located in Huye District to supply 6000m3 of Water to the population on a daily basis after networks extensions and the construction of new reservoirs while it was supplying 5500 m3.

The project has been planned to serve 72000 residents, and they are urged to take care of the water infrastructures provided to them.