KINSHASA, Nov 17 (IPS) - Kinshasa's population needs an estimated 700,000 cubic metres of water per day. The Régie de distribution des eaux (REGIDESO) produces only 425,000 cubic metres - vast neighbourhoods like Kitokimosi and Mpasa receive almost none of this water.
The situation in other parts of the country is similar if not worse.
"In total, only 22 percent of Congolese have access to drinking water, while the average in sub-Saharan Africa is around 60 percent," says Frank Bousquet, from the World Bank's Urban Potable Water Supply Project (known by its French acronym, PEMU).
"The lack of drinking water poses a significant threat to public health and it is the poor who pay the heaviest price for this inefficient service. They pay seven times more for a litre of water than they would if water services operated properly."
Jean-Pierre Kajangu, from the health economics programme at the School of Public Health at the University of Kinshasa says the situation is serious. "It's not just the health of residents of Kitokimosi and Mpasa, but the whole population of Kinshasa is at risk," he said.
"The water from wells and rivers gives rise to many health problems for us as women," says Sophie Nkeyi, who sells fish in the Kitokimosi market, "because we use it to bathe, to cook, to wash our clothes which we cannot even iron for lack of electricity."
She and her ten-year-old daughter are forced to visit the doctor regularly. "The doctor prescribes antibiotics and de-worming medicine against infections and intestinal parasites which we are exposed to by the water in rivers and pools," she told IPS.
Lydia Panzu, 16, says that because of the physical strain of fetching water, she has suffered back problems for the past three years. "Back problems, neck problems, because I go back and forth two or three times a day, down into the valley to the river and back, each time with around 20 litres of water on my head."
Short of resources
REGIDESO's technical and finance departments say the utility's poor performance is linked to its aging infrastructure.
"A key example is the Lukunga waterworks, with a capacity of 48,000 cubic metres a day, and which serves a million residents in two districts of Kinshasa. It was built in 1939 by the colonial powers and has not been substantially refurbished to this day," says David Ekwanza, director of exploitation at REGIDESO.
The lack of maintenance is a direct consequence of a shortage of financial resources. "And this lack of finances is principally due to the fact that government departments - who are the largest consumers - do not pay their monthly water bills," says Polycarpe Kabangu, head of finance at REGIDESO.
"These departments include government offices, the official residences of certain highly-placed politicians, public enterprises... who owe around 3.5 million dollars each month, representing 40 percent of the businesses' accounts, causing enormous financial difficulties, and making it impossible to rebuild the infrastructure and supply water across the city of Kinshasa as well as delaying payment of salaries to staff."
PEMU proposes to sustainably increase access to water in urban areas, in improve the water company's technical and financial effectiveness.
The project will focus on three things: "the restoration of financial viability; the creation of conditions for dynamic management which will transform this public enterprise into a social entity designed to increase managerial autonomy; as well as the renewal and upgrading of facilities in the three centres most likely to generate the revenue needed to restore balance and help support secondary centres."
Louise Yemba is tired of hearing promises about bringing water to Mpasa. "I think we need a project better than the others launched by the World Bank in DRC and whose effects have been limited to the Bank publicity."
The human rights activist from Mpasa doubts the project will be executed. "Or it will be badly carried out because of the poor quality of governance in the country and the paralysis of Congolese civil society - which must become aware of the role it has to play in putting pressure on the World Bank and the government to support all Congolese who don't have access to water," Yemba says.
Patrice Musoko, the coordinator of the Congolese Association of Consumers of Food Products, agrees that citizen action is the key.
"Civil society must put effective pressure on the government to reduce these arrears and pay their bills and allow REGIDESO to maintain its infrastructure and supply the neighbourhoods which are not yet served in Kinshasa. Civil society must also follow up to be sure that the money paid is effectively used to these ends."
But in a country still struggling with the effects of a series of armed conflicts and the breakdown of effective government, it will not be an easy task.
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