Senators have urged Huye District officials and residents to put more efforts in improving hygiene and sanitation to achieve comprehensive development.

They said the local government entities and development partners should work together to ensure that hygiene and cleanliness standards are met.

Senators Prof Chrysologue Karangwa and Evariste Bizimana made the remarks on Monday during the assessment of hygiene status in Huye. The meeting brought together representatives of schools, health facilities, churches and local government. The exercise is being carried out by senators countrywide.

Senator Karangwa said more toilets should be built, but stressed the need to ensure good hygiene and sanitation in public places such as schools, health facilities, local government entities and churches, which attract large numbers of people.

Huye has about 116 schools, but some of them have a challenge of shortage of water and toilets.

The standard student-toilet ratio is 40 to 1, but it was discovered that some of the schools fall short of this standard.

Senator Karangwa said the situation would improve through setting goals.

"Before building a school or church, it would be better to avail decent toilets. To attain this, schools, churches, health facilities, sectors and cells should make performance contracts (Imihigo) that they have to be met on an annual basis,” he said, adding that Imihigo have proven to be relevant in helping developing the country and should be upheld.

Senator Bizimana said lack of enough latrines could put lives of people at risk.

"We found out that a school with 1000 students had only 15 latrines. That is why some students ease themselves in the open. In the event of a cholera outbreak, all the students risk getting infected. You cannot develop in one aspect, yet other aspects are lagging behind,” he said.

Bizimana said the provision of the construction permit should be premised on whether the owner has planned to harvest rain water, which can be used to improve hygiene.

The senators said that during a similar exercise in January and February, it was established that some residents were living with livestock in their houses, claiming it was a measure to protect their animals from thieves. There were also cases of people affected by jiggers.

However, sector leaders said these issues had been addressed.

Huye mayor Eugène Kayiranga Muzuka said the district has taken measures to ensure that residents and their property are protected, including community-based security keeping (irondo).

He said since the inception of hygiene and sanitation inspection by the senators, there has been reinforcement of the line committees at health centres to monitor the situation and to make a report of the status from home to district level.

Muzuka said they had also put measures to collect and incinerate waste (rubbish) from various health facilities using an appropriate machine, and 30 people were trained to ensure hygiene and sanitation in health facilities.

Muzuka said 86 per cent of Huye residents are living in clustered settlements, with 65 per cent of them in planned villages.

"Living in villages is good, but can be very risky if the toilet facilities are not sufficient. We have to continue putting efforts in toilets,” he said.

Muzuka said the district is planning to construct public toilets at bus stops and trading centres so that passengers can have safe places of convenience. The other plan, he said, is to avail dustbins across Huye town to avoid littering of rubbish.

However, school heads and other participants expressed concerns over lack of tap water and means to harvest rain water in some areas.

"There is still a challenge of lack of access of tap water and lack of water tanks in some schools, which makes it difficult to insure proper hygiene,” said Eric Ndayisaba, the director of Regina Pacis School in Tumba Sector.

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