Considered by the surrounding communities as their main source of livelihood and survival, Lake Victoria recently stunned them when it churned out death and not life that resulted in the deaths of over 40 people.

From the hyacinth problems that has made it difficult for people to fish or travel in the lake, the communities around it suffered another setback when they contracted cholera and bilharzias from its waters. Tens of them died due to dysentery.

As the regions reported a series of deaths, a study released recently by the East African Civil Society Watchdog for Sustainable Development in Lake Victoria basin (SUSWATCH) warns that the problem facing the lake ranges from lack of clean drinking water, public toilets, and pitiable infrastructure such as roads.

"The current scenario puts considerable stress on community livelihoods in these areas as well as the lake,” says Mr. Frank Msafiri, the chairman of Kenya Organization for Environmental Education (KOEE), one of the lead study organizations.

“It also pulls back the overall target of having a certain proportion of people with sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation,” he adds in their study conducted between November and December 2007.

The study was done in Usenge and Obunga beaches in Kenya, Kisima, Bunjakko, Kiyindi and Nakiwogo Islands in Uganda and Ukerewe district in Mwanza region in Tanzania. 

The authors of the study say the residents living around the lake are to blame for the plight: they defecate in vacant plots, abandoned buildings, water drains, canals and gullies which transport the dirt into the lake, causing massive health and environmental problems. 

The study, Scarcity Amidst Plenty, discovered that fish landing sites along the lakeshores lack proper waste management, resulting in major garbage around the beaches. While inadequate sanitation within the low lying regions that are densely populated were polluting groundwater resources, which have a wide coverage within the lake basin. 

“Most of the boreholes are poorly planned and are located close to pit latrines and whenever there are floods, the pit latrines overflow, thus causing out break of diseases like typhoid and cholera,” explains Msafiri. 

Compounding this situation are the small gardens and some other plantations along the lakeshores that use agrichemicals, which end up into the lake as runoffs. 

Interestingly, some fishermen in Kiyindi Island in Uganda admitted that they defecate in the lake or bush as good omen to have a major catch when they go fishing. 

Msafiri blames the sanitation problems facing the three East African governments on their failure to allocate enough funds for the improvement of the environment despite earning millions of shillings annually from the fishing industry. 

Kenya, for instance, makes Ksh 8 billion annually from the sale of fish to the European Union markets. Yet, a paltry Shs 101,500,000 was allocated for sewerage management in the 2007/2008. 

Most of the investment in the area has come from the UN Habitat fund’s that are used for rehabilitating water supply and capacity building in line with Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) projects. 

Launched in 2006, the project intends to provide water and sanitation facilities to 150,000 people in the towns of Kisii and Homa Bay in Kenya, Bukoba and Muleba in Tanzania and Masaka and Kyotera in Uganda. 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) in collaboration with the World Bank has too been funding the Victoria Environment Management Programme (LVEMP) since 1997. 

The SUSWATCH study notes that over 600,000 people who are directly working in fisheries at the 1,500 fish landing sites are low-income earners who cannot construct even a toilet. Yet they have been severely neglected in the provision of a wide range of services. 

“The fish landing beaches require sustained investment in infrastructure to overcome the effects of prolonged neglect,” says John Wabwire, the lead study researcher. 

“But poor planning at the beaches has resulted into poor sanitation conditions at the sites both on the islands and mainland,” he adds. 

The study recommends that the East African countries that share the lake waters develop and implement a comprehensive policy in scaling up sewerage connection to the local communities around the lake to limit the spillage of waste into the lake. 

This intervention is urgent considering that the annual population growth around the lake and on the Islands is 7 percent; which is likely to outstrip the existing capacities for service delivery by the local authorities.

“There is need for innovative approaches in addressing the current limitation of high investment costs for sewerage in small towns around Lake Victoria. 

This can be done by spelling out mandatory water harvesting and sewerage requirements for planned group housing estates to minimize the public health effects of storm water,” the report adds. 

The study further calls on the Lake Victoria Basin Commission (LVBC) to take strident action against institutions that do not comply with national water quality standards. 

Such an action would reduce the high quantities of untreated and partially treated waste that is discharged into the lake. 

The study further recommends the use of toilet models that suit local conditions, appropriate water harvesting methods, and technologies to help ease water scarcity during dry seasons. Local communities be given water testing kits and taught on recycling of organic materials, it concludes.

An AWC Feature