COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL MAY 2, 2018 7A
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR CONT.
Guest Viewpoint
Local opportunity to help provide clean water in Africa
According to the UN Environ-
mental Program (UNEP), more than
400 million Africans now live in wa-
ter-scarce countries; 300 million people still do not have reasonable
access to safe drinking water and nearly 230 million people defecate
in the open.
When it comes to politics, African leaders always promise to make
water and sanitation their top priories once elected to leaders. But these
promises always just remains promises months and years after elec-
tions.
Most people in Africa have accepted the situation as is and are not
trying anymore to put pressure on their governments to implement
any millennium goals. Corruption is the language that most African
government talk and with corruption, only a small group of people in
the society gets everything while the larger population languishes in
extreme poverty.
But the reasons African governments cite for not implementing inte-
grated water management policies or meeting commitments they have
made to provide sanitation are many and varied. A survey of offi cials
led by United Nations Environmental Program in 40 African Countries
suggests they are not mainly constrained by a lack of money.
Congo-Brazzaville, Nigeria and Sierra Leone for example don't even
have a formal water policy, they told the UN and African Union in the
report. São Tomé and Principe said it did not have the necessary laws
in place; Cameroon said it had no one to champion the cause of water
provision, and 25 other countries, including Kenya, Namibia, Swazi-
land, Rwanda and Mozambique, said they did not have enough human
capacity.
Some countries said that they didn’t have money for the water and
sanitation project yet when looked into how much most governments
spent in recurring expenditures, it’s frustrating to be told that there is no
money to help with water and sanitation.
There is a growing belief that it makes little sense for governments
in Africa to make more commitments on water and sanitation. It has
now become upon the people to improvise ways in which to increase
the availability of water and improve sanitation. Ideally, this should be
the role of the government of the day in every country.
The government budgetary allocation for development expenditure
has been lower in most countries in Africa than the allocation for re-
current expenditure - which mostly goes towards the payment of sal-
aries and allowances of civil servants/government offi cials. It is also
worth noting that there are disparities in salaries to offi cials even for
those within the same job group, some even with similar qualifi cations.
This is because the remuneration package is not based on a systematic
job description and pay analysis. It is also important to note that most
government employees in Africa are rarely motivated hence nothing
much can be expected from them in terms of performance. Of concern
though, is the rate at which the public sector wage bill has skyrocketed,
to the extent that it is threatening to stifl e government’s normal oper-
By Gordon Okumu
ations and consequently, economic growth. It is based on this back-
ground that Water and Sanitation in Africa remains to be one of those
“things” that the African Governments won’t handle anytime soon.
Communities fi ght each other over creeks or rivers. They block one
another from using a section of the river believing to belong to a dif-
ferent community. All is because of lack of enough water for everyone.
The governments in Africa will always say that they are having big-
ger projects like building roads, or re-designing the cities when in the
real sense, they are doing so little and even if they were indeed building
the roads, the question of concern would be; to whom are they build-
ing the roads when the citizens are unable to take care of themselves
and won’t use the roads anywhere. It’s a poor logic and a misplaced
priority.
The writer of this article was born in a small town called Migori in
western Kenya. Migori just like any other Kenyan towns has problems
with water and sanitation. People here have no piped or treated water.
All the available water for use is either rain water or water from the
rivers and the creeks within the community.
The rivers fl ows from highlands to the lowlands and different people
use the river water for different activities. As the river fl ows, someone
is bathing upstream, someone downs stream is doing laundry, someone
is watering animals while someone else is fetching water to take home
for domestic use. In this kind of a set-up, waterborne diseases cannot
be wished away. Diarrhea and typhoid becomes part of the daily lives
for people in these communities and eventually death! No government
should allow her people to live this kind of life in this century any-
where in the world. The waterborne disease cannot go away because in
this set up, people wash off their dirt and someone takes up the same
washed out dirt for drinking. This has been happening forever. The
writer’s mom died of typhoid over 15 years ago due to the same lack of
water and sanitation in this community.
In a society where people live in less than a $1 a day, diseases that
can easily be cured are still fatal because they cannot afford cost of
medication while the government uses almost 65% of its revenues
paying salaries to top civil servants and losing about 25% of the total
revenues on corruption and only left with 10% of the revenues for de-
velopment projects. Its unsustainable and it seem like it will take many
more years before Africa can get out of this situation.
It’s in this regard that African immigrants always try to help their
communities back at home with these basic and necessary human
needs. Guardian Angels of African Orphans (GAOAO) is a nonprofi t
organization founded and registered in the state of Oregon. GAOAO
is currently approaching everybody who cares to listen to help raise
funds to drill a community well in Migori Kenya. This well will be safe
from pollution, this well will provide enough water all year round and
it will help save lives in this community. Mark your calendar Sunday
July 1st 2018 at 12:00pm at the Trinity Lutheran Church in Cottage
Grove. You are welcome to try the Kenyan food, listen to the Ken-
yan story and make a contribution to help save a life in Kenya.
resources, but Cottage Grove
needs a bigger plan to help ev-
eryone work together on sever-
al fronts to solve its economic
slump.
The Cottage Grove Chamber
of Commerce's work is invalu-
able and its presence appreciat-
ed by all, but it needs more help
from our local leaders than it
receives. Cottage Grove seems
to be putting "the cart before
the horse" with its desire to
"fi nd more affordable" housing.
it seems to miss a key factor,
which is how housing is directly
tied to economic opportunities
or the lack of. It would be very
helpful if Cottage Grove lead-
ers would focus its priorities on
economic development. Instead
of trying to solve problems of
affordability it would help to
emphasize sustainable solutions
for our local residences. How
can we employ more people
locally, how can we bring busi-
nesses to Cottage Grove that
will employ our population.
I do not want to see Cottage
Grove's future driven by land
developers who are not neces-
sarily going to add jobs to the
town, but make their money and
leave us with bigger problems
and no economic solutions for
our downtown or our citizens.
We need solutions for economic
development and job genera-
tion. If this is accomplished then
coordinated affordable housing
opportunities will follow.
Sincerely,
Linda Kleiner
Cottage Grove
This is a shout out to the
Cottage Grove Community for
their generous support of the
Swinging Bridge restoration ef-
fort. When we put out the call
for donations of items for the
Rummage/Flea/White Elephant
Sale, we had no idea of the level
of support we would eperience.
As your kind donations of items
for the sale started mounding
up it soon became apparent that
a rental truck would be needed.
Many of our donors spoke to the
fact that it was because it was for
the Swinging Bridge that they
decided to donate. So a heart-
felt thank you to all who donated
items for the sale!
Secondly we want to thank all
the folks who showed up to the
Earth Day Celebration at Coiner
Park and came by the sale. Your
generosity added up. Many peo-
ple when paying for their items
paid way more than was asked
or said keep the change. It was
a good feeling to promote one of
the tenets of Earth stewardship,
Reuse, during EarthDay by con-
necting one persons no longer
needed items with a new home.
Thanks to all of your purchases
and donations we were able to
raise over $1000 that day and
when it was added to the City
Trust Fund for the Swinging
Bridge, the total in the fund went
over $10,000! We are getting
some where now, let’s keep the
effort going to show that we have
our money where our mouth is
on the Swinging Bridge Cottage
Grove.
Lastly we want to thank all
the good people at the Coast
Fork Willamette Watershed
Council for sponsoring the Cot-
tage Grove Earth Day Celebra-
tion and allowing the Friends
of Cottage Grove Swinging
Bridge to set up our Swinging
Rope Monkey Bridge and our
sale. Also for all that you do to
help insure that the Coast Fork
of the Willamette River will be
healthy and a resource for future
generations of Cottage Grovers.
Thank you everyone!
Dana Merryday
Cottage Grove
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
I am pleased to see our city planner at work on the 10-year anal-
ysis of Cottage Grove's housing situation as well as the Regional
Solutions Meeting that occurred recently in our town. Although the
purpose laid out for the "housing analysis" is not necessarily meant
to solve housing issues, it may reveal a furtherlack of housing in
Cottage Grove. More important related to affordable housing is the
recent "Regional Solutions" meeting which seemed to focus on re-
sources outside the city for assistance. No problem with outside
R ECYCLE ! R EUSE !
E
R
O
T
S
R E
R E S TORE H OURS
T HURSDAY , F RIDAY & S ATURDAY
10 AM -4 PM
Drop off your old paint
for recycling
at our ReStore location
during business hours
Have
something to
say? Write in!
EMERALD
VALLEY
ARMORY, LLC
Come celebrate with us
on May 5th in our
new larger location!
We are off ering $25 - $100 OFF
SELECT FIREARMS
Ask about our classes & schedules
We promote responsible gun ownership
Preserve our earth
Keep items out of the landfi lls
Donate to the ReStore
EMERALD
VALLEY
ARMORY, LLC
Habitat Offi ce and ReStore
2155 Getty Circle ~ Unit #1
147 W. Oregon Ave.
Creswell, OR 97426
in the Cottage Grove Industrial Park
South on Hwy 99 past the High School
Call 541.767.0358
for more information
Email
info@habitatcg.org
(right next to city hall)
Tues. - Sat. 10-6 pm
541-895-2666 ph
541-895-2748 fax