By Mohamed Issa

The expression that “Sierra Leone is endowed with numerous natural resources” has become a cliché in our everyday vocabulary, given the fact that it has been used over and over again not only in written words but also in verbal form to express how rich the country is with God’s given resources. And this notion is deeply established and heralded by even those in the highly remote villages including the uneducated citizens.

But albeit all our so-called riches, the country with a population size of a hamlet in Guinea or Nigeria is still facing scarcity, in the sense that it’s struggling to feed itself from the period it gained independence less to talk of providing other basic necessities including but not limited to quality healthcare system, quality education, better roads, safe drinking water, and reliable electricity supply for the tiny impoverished population.

But who is to blame?

Government after government had promised to use this natural wealth, the diamonds, bauxites, rutile, waters and marine resources, forests, iron ore and arable lands to develop the country and take care of the people, but behold it has always been the direct reverse, they instead take good care of they in governance whilst the governed are left to wallow in abject poverty.

It’s shameful, to say the least, that a country blessed with abundant water resources for instance, could face water scarcity (crisis) particularly at the midst of raining season which has propelled the sale of a sachet of water from five hundred old leones (NLe5) to one new leones (one thousand old leones).

Before now the only water that was considered as mirror of admiration in the country was the Grafton spring water, a product of a Ghanaian international businesswoman Madam Lillian Lisk. Even though many water companies have sprung over the years, the Grafton Water Company has permeated all companies.

Paradoxically, Sierra Leone is amongst the countries in the West Africa sub-region, better put the world at large with heavy rainfall, yet, it lacks healthy drinking water and sufficient water supply which is why many patriotic citizens are yet to be  convinced that we are sober about development and yet to start it, given the fact  even the least or non-considered natural resources (water) is one of the major natural resources in Namibia which the country regularly supplies to South Africa and other countries. And the reverse is in Sierra Leone where good drinking water is either imported or produced by foreigners and only the capitalists who were in those days and are still financially strong can afford them. True to say, everybody in the country wants to drink plastic or sachet water, but the cost is militating against those whose earning power is far less.  Over and above that, the most pathetic issue is that most of these water companies never follow the due process of our laws in the country. As they constantly invade taxes,  so they flout labour laws, EPA regulations, health and sanitation laws and many other domestic laws, yet, they cultivate money like rice at the peril of the general masses with the tick of the clock. And those who are charged with the responsibility to monitor and regulate the operations of these companies are in most cases interested in lining up their pockets with ill-gotten wealth with no iota of patriotism. In this much talked about nothing, the ineptitude of the Guma Valley Water Company and SALWCO are frustrating government entities that have outlived their usefulness.

Added to the economic exploitation of these numerous water companies, the health hazards of littering the streets with water plastic and rubber materials are exacerbating the problem of having a clean city in the country, hence the Portuguese proverb: “a luta contniua” meaning the struggle continues.