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This sad waste of water should end
2008-04-04 08:50:23
By Editor
Some years ago a senior cabinet minister was on record as having publicly talked about plans by the government to mitigate the ravages of prolonged drought by desalinating the Indian Ocean waters for human use in sprawling Dar es Salaam and its environs.
Forget the dramatic but controversial pronouncement and the massive reaction it elicited from various quarters inside and outside Tanzania because, after all, he was later heard declaring that he was misquoted.
However, the point we want to make concerns the torrential rains many parts of our country are experiencing and how best we can use them.
Our weather forecasting experts have spied on the skies using high-tech gadgets and assured an expectant nation that the rains will continue pouring until sometime next month.
Very good news, one must say, particularly considering that ours is a predominantly agricultural nation, that the bulk of our agriculture is rain-fed and that we have had extremely poor rains in recent years.
Since as long ago as one can remember, all manner of development experts and ordinary members of the public have called on the government to take deliberate measures to harness the huge amounts of water from the lakes, rivers, streams and other natural sources Tanzania is endowed with.
It has been argued on occasions without number, and quite correctly so, that we have not always moved with the seriousness we need to make sure that we reap maximum benefits from our natural and other resources.
People have been wondering, again countless times, why we have always been making frantic reactive efforts to save ourselves from the disastrous consequences of droughts and floods but that has not served as a lesson enough for us to get around the problems by harnessing floodwaters more meaningfully.
We know there have been sporadic reports of the government planning to devise and implement projects aimed at achieving that very objective.
But, to all intents and purposes, it has throughout been many tonnes of rhetoric and only a few kilogrammes of concrete action.
But perhaps we should give the government the benefit of the doubt, at least for a while, by deciding to consider the failures and shortcomings we have witnessed until now as bygones and hope that we shall soon see a new chapter open.
We know what we are saying, and we mean it. The government will have a very hard time defending a continuation of the lethargy and lack of interest we have seen characterising planned initiatives to make the natural sources of water in the country serve our people as much science and technology can combine with the ingenuity and sweat of our people in making possible.
The government`s recent decision to defy history by beginning to exploit Lake Victoria waters for the benefit of resource-rich but semi-arid areas like Shinyanga Region is bold, patriotic and – therefore – highly laudable.
Now that we have a full Water and Irrigation ministry in place, more similarly patriotic moves should follow.
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