February 18, 2013

By Elias Mhegera

Stakeholders in the water sector have asked Tanzanians to support the government’s initiatives in providing clean water in both the urban centres and in the rural sector.

This call came on Thursday last week when these stakeholders attended a one day seminar on clean and safe water by experts from the Nippon Poly-Glue Co Ltd from Japan; the seminar was conducted at the residence of Japanese ambassador to Tanzania in Dar es Salaam.

Commenting after a water purification experiment was Allen Mweta, the Principal Engineer, Rural Water Supply in the Ministry of Water who appreciated that the simple purification process by this company will rescue a good number of Tanzanians from the rural sector who are highly affected by water borne diseases.

“There is a need to mitigate together between the government and investors both local and foreign in order to find how the private public partnership strategy can work in the provision of clean and safe water,” he commented.

Earlier the Japanese Ambassador to Tanzania Masaki Okada said that his country had supported the provision of clean water in many countries through after realizing that it has proven to be of high quality and trustworthy.

He acknowledged that the service is simple and affordable to people of low incomes. “This technology is suitable even to people in the rural areas of Tanzania because it does not demand costly investments,” he said.

The initiator of this technology Dr Eng. Kanetoshi Oda, chairman of the Poly-Glu Social Business Co Ltd said that his company finally managed to come up with successful results after a scientific research of more than ten years.

“We are in many places with a severe demand of clean water, like Somalia, Bangladesh, with an aim of ensuring that every villager gets clean and safe water, we have organized safe water committees, in so doing we have created jobs apart from providing clean and safe water.

He boasted that the core element of operations of his company has always been to make local people understand that they are able to make a new supply water point by themselves through the profit from the business.

“We have managed to create model water supply points, we have demonstrated that our business can improve people’s health, create jobs, and make a profit to water management committee too,” he concluded.

For his part the Bukoba Regional Commissioner Fabian Massawe thanked the Japanese Government and the Poly-Glu company for making his region a pilot study since many dwellers was being affected by water born diseases.  

It was disclosed during the question ad answers session that even regions with high concentration of fluoride like Arusha, Singida, Manyara and Kilimanjaro will benefit trough this technology which is able to remove the destructive chemicals that affect water users.

Photo:

A woman who was caught up in search of water in Mbeya, Southern Highlands of Tanzania