• ‘Inertia at newly created Ministry of Water & Sanitation to blame for Cholera outbreak Mwale, Kaziya must take responsibility • Funding setbacks have rendered the DTF moribund

The return of a major cholera outbreak to Zambia has been coming due to low and no tangible investment to into the clean water supply and sanitation services especially in our low income areas in the last few years.

A special purpose vehicle, the Devolution Trust Fund -DTF was established by the National Water Supply and Sanitation Council -NWASCO to raise funds from both the Zambian treasury and foreign corporation’s partners. This fund has in the last two to three years suffered funding setbacks which have rendered DTF moribund.

When you recall, His Excellence the Republican President Edgar Lungu announced the creation of the Ministry of Water Development, Sanitation and Environmental Protection. President Lungu appointed Matero Member of Parliament Lloyd Kaziya as Minister. The DTF board chairperson David Zulu in his 2016 annual report commentary stated Unlike in the past when the Water portfolio was housed in two Ministries – Local Government and Lands & Natural Resources

Zulu stated that sometimes, this housing in two ministries ended up clouding out the water function, he said that this arrangement would ensure coordinated operation and synergies of the various aspects of the sector and hoped that Ultimately this change would ease the creation of the financing mechanism and hence improve funding to the sector.

This ministerial department relocations and alignments seem to be at the centre of the confusion we are seeing were it’s not clear which Ministry is responsible for what. We also have the health ministry that has swallowed up the public health department, a department that was previously housed with the ministry of Local Government and now a small and ignored department under the ministry of health.

It’s however crystal clear that the Ministry of Local Government Headed by Vincent Mwale has the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that municipalities have the requisite facilities for supplying clean and treated water to residents as well as have a well-established sanitation system for both human and garbage waste disposal. This is why the Local Government Ministry is supposed to push for all the other players to deliver.

According to DTF, over 60% of urban dwellers live in low income and high density areas and Lusaka has the highest population making the city vulnerable to communicable disease outbreaks. The sanitation investment in sewer system has largely remained underdeveloped in Zambia.

The government will need to review and change the model were there is heavy reliance on donor and foreign funding of our national water supply and sanitation services. There is need to look at taking full responsibility for formalizing and servicing our “informal” settlements and finding workable models.

There is also the issue we’re most government institutions are the biggest culprits in unsettled bills for water utility companies across the country. There is need to run the commercial water and Sewerage utilities independently so that debt collection and services disconnections can be done within contracted business norms.

The water utilities are struggling with non-revenue water of about 50%, meaning that there is water losses and un-billed water supplies of 50% of what the water utilities pump out. This 50% losses need to be urgently plugged and will need investment in the water distribution network to ensure efficiency, sustainable and profitable operations.

NWASCO will also need to support the water supply and Sanitation industry by supporting a cost reflective tariff structure. This could cut across new connection costs with a lifeline tariff established for the low income areas. This is possible and ZESCO has been able to implement. If this would help city dweller to get a water connection with agreed timelines, this has a bigger chance of success if you compare this with sinking of borehole costs which have a risk of drying up during the dry season. There is definitely a need to have strong and dedicated leadership to lead the decentralization of the local government system in Zambia and make it work for the citizens. We equally need better and more drive in the newly created ministry of water and Sanitation development. If these two ministries function properly, the savings will be seam through reduced disease burden and healthcare bills from the ministry of Health.

The water and Sewerage utilities need to expand and be chasing the number of Zesco household connections in terms of numbers. Performance targets in terms of coverage and quality of service must be set to measure the boards and management teams of all the 11 commercial water and Sewerage utilities across Zambia. Were the utility management teams fail to meet set targets without proper and credible attempts, they must be made to take responsibility, to root out the culture of impunity. On 01 January, only 78% of the Zambian farmers on the e-voucher system had received farming inputs key of which is fertilizer. As at Friday 29 December the number was 28% lower with slightly over 500,000 receiving farming inputs roughly over 50% of the targeted 1million targeted counterparts. However, what is saddening is that the maize planting season is almost over yet 25% farmers on the e-voucher system either just received farming inputs and another 22% have not accessed at all. The Permanent Secretary explained some of the challenges the Ministry and the SMART Zambia e-government team have faced with regards successful implementation of the Agriculture Management Integration System. Mr. Shawa highlighted that the biggest hurdle from an agriculture ministry perspective was input supplies by the agro dealers who are part of a (5) legged process comprised of farmer’s contribution of ZMW400, the government subsidy component, input supply by the agro dealer, commercial banks for provision and loading of credit onto digital cards and finally the system provided by the SMART Zambia team. s stations.