Garbage, which was carried from the gullies of the Corporate Area, settles in the Kingston Harbour after heavy showers last Friday. - PHOTO BY SHANTI PERSAUD
THE JAMAICAN Government is working to ensure that by 2010, all Jamaican households, urban and rural, have access to potable water and adequate sanitation. This is in keeping with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The MDG for the water sector is to halve the number of people without access to safe drinking water by 2015. With regard to sanitation, the plan is to 'significantly reduce the number of people without access to modern sanitation facilities.'
ACCESS TO PIPED WATER, SEWERAGE
"The Government of Jamaica is actually ahead of the schedule with respect to the provision of access to potable water ..." said Water and Housing Minister, Donald Buchanan. "At the present time, we have 72 per cent of the people of Jamaica who have access to piped water and we intend, by 2010, to increase that to 85 per cent,"
Currently, 45 per cent of rural Jamaican households have piped water, 24 per cent source water from standpipes, 23 per cent use rainwater tanks, while the remaining eight per cent get water from rivers, streams and ponds.
Sewerage, on the other hand, is not generally provided in rural areas, except in small housing developments. In total, some three per cent of rural households are connected to a sewer system.
National statistics reveal that the most common sanitary convenience in rural areas is the pit latrine, used by 60 per cent of rural households.
While pit latrines, septic tanks and other types of on-site conveniences can be effective and safe, if not properly constructed, used and maintained, they can pose a threat to health and the quality of aquifers and surface water.
The Government is well under way to achieving the MDGs, said Minister Buchanan.
"We intend, using a number of
modalities, to provide the other 15 per cent of the population with access to safe drinking water," he said. "This will include, in some instances community tanks. It will include the trucking of water to community facilities and in some instances it may include the use of individual water tanks within the communities.
"Already, the financing has been identified to move, over the next three years, the provision of piped water from 72 to 78 per cent, and we are in the process of identifying the financing for the additional projects to take us to 85 per cent," he added.
According to the Water and Housing Minister, it will cost approximately US$2 billion (more than J$120 billion) to complete all of the country's developmental requirements in water, wastewater and sewerage facilities.
This cost, he said, can be realised over a period of time and with the assistance of private sector, non-governmental organisations and other community groups.
NEW STRATEGIES
In the next few years, among the initiatives to be implemented by the government to ensure that the country successfully achieves the targets outlined in the MDGs, include the establishment of the Rural Water Supply Company, which should be launched this year to provide water to rural areas, and more partnerships with private sector and communities to implement water and wastewater treatment projects.
"Whereas this did not exist in the past, there is now an intensity to involve the communities as well as the private sector in the development of the water and sanitation sector," Minister Buchanan declares.
In keeping with this new strategy, the Government, through the Ministry of Water and Housing, under the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Rural Water and Sanitation Project, is currently funding four projects in the parishes of St. Elizabeth, St. Thomas, St. Mary and Clarendon.
These projects, when completed, will allow communities to manage and maintain their own water supply systems.
