Residents of Huye District now have easy access to safe and clean water, thanks to Water and Sanitation Corporation, (WASAC)’s ‘rehabilitation, upgrading and extension of a water supply network' project.

Available data from Huye District indicates that the project has scaled up the water access rate from 75.7 to 78.6 percent.

Under the project, water pipelines were delivered to homes and sectors and people were able to connect home taps. There was also provision of free taps to vulnerable families and construction of public taps in centres.

The initiative ran from February 2019 to June 2021, and it resulted in the construction of 133.8 Km pipelines, 16 reservoirs with the capacity of 3860m3, 24 water Kiosks, 40 single taps, 22 double taps, and 2 pumping stations, and 500 poor families were connected to water free of charge.

This steadily enhanced the standards of living for people living in the District, including those in peri-urban areas, remote and mountainous areas.

Some have even resorted to supplying water in their local villages and are earning an income.

Sponsored by the African Development Bank (AFDB), the project targeted sectors such as Huye, Rusatira, Kinazi, Ruhashya and Rwaniro, in Huye District, and Save sector in Gisagara District. Most of these lacked enough water pipelines.

When The New Times toured the sectors, significant changes were observed, and indeed residents attested to the remarkable development.

One of the residents, 45-year old Theophile Ndagijimana, who also lives with a disability, was one of the families that received free taps.

He hails WASAC for its efforts, saying that as a person living with disability, accessing water was a big challenge for him and his household.

 "As a disabled person, it was very difficult for me to provide water for my household. My children had to walk several miles before heading to school and this was tiresome. Unlike now, where we currently get water in the convenience of our homes,” he recalled.

Water access was also expanded to public infrastructures like schools, hospitals and other public spaces as part of WASAC’s agenda to bring water access closer to citizens.  

Erneste Uwiringiyimana, the Dean of Studies at Kimuna Primary school in Rusatira Sector, Huye District, recounts the hurdles they often encountered to provide water to over 600 students.

"In some cases, we asked each student to come with a little jerry can with water to use in cleaning as well as for drinking purposes. This happened especially in the dry season,” the Dean mentioned.

Reflecting the changed standards of living, Liberatha Nikuze, 54, is proud of the fact that she now manages a public tap in Huye. 

She is optimistic that the job will improve her livelihood: "As long as I am part of the solution to provide people with clean water, I am sure the job will raise my standard of living,” she reiterated.

 Call for infrastructure maintenance 

Pumping stations and water reservoirs installed facilitated the efficiency of water treatment plants.

This is because treatment plants get more channels and pipelines to distribute water to residents, according to Jonas Munyamahoro, the manager of Kadahokwa Treatment Plant, which usually supplies water to Huye residents.

The plant’s capacity was 5500 cubic metres before the project, now Kadahokwa says he can supply over 6,000 cubic meters per day.

"This AFDB project helped us build more and bigger dams with the capacity of 6,000 cubic meters, and it also helped us in upgrading and broadening the pipelines and water networks, built pumping stations, and helped us increase our distribution channels as well as increasing our target population,” he noted.

Officials who talked to The New Times urged beneficiaries to take care of water infrastructures, and use them for common interests.

Xavier Rwibasira, the Single Project Implementation Unit Coordinator at WASAC, urged residents to ensure the infrastructures provided to them are used for sustainability purposes.

He also commended the swift coordination of local government entities during the process.

Huye was chosen among the beneficiary districts as a secondary city.

The project is under Rwanda Sustainable Water Supply and Sanitation Program, a program that is aiming at improving the quality of life and socio-economic development of the people and country by ensuring equitable provision of adequate, reliable and sustainable water and sanitation services for targeted cities with a view to promote economic growth and transformation.

The program targeted the city of Kigali and secondary cities; Muhanga, Huye, Nyagatare, Musanze, Rubavu, Rusizi as well as their peri-urban areas.