MOROTO – Unlike the past when families in Karamoja used to share water sources with animals, now the statistics from the ministry of water and environment shows that the challenge of water in the sub-region was slowly being addressed.
Speaking to this publication on Friday, Mr. Patrick Ocero, the manager of Karamoja water umbrella, one of the departments from the ministry of water managing water systems in small towns in Karamoja said clean water has been made available to 174,090 people in the region. He said they are only remaining with 158,552 people.
“Out of 550 villages in Karamoja, we have covered 266 villages fully with clean water and we are remaining with 284 villages to be served,” he said.
Mr. Johnson Opige, the engineer from the ministry of water handling small towns water supply and sanitation project in Karamoja said in the next five to ten years, water shortage in the sub-region will be history.
“We have constructed 37 small towns and rural growth center water supply systems across the nine districts of Karamoja and they are under the management of Karamoja Umbrella of water and Sanitation and they are fully functioning,” he said.
Mr. Paul Lokol, the district chairperson Nabilatuk acknowledges that the coverage of clean water in Karamoja was improving unlike in the past years.
“At least now we can say the government is addressing water shortage in Karamoja because our people don’t over move to get water for domestic use,” he said.
Dr James Lemukol, the district health director Napak said district was no longer experiencing high cases of diarrhea because people have access to clean water.
