The Bonthe Water Supply Project is currently in high gear with the construction of a Manager’s quarters, store, and workshop, molding of blocks for a perimeter fence, digging of a trench for laying pipes currently ongoing.
Actual work on the project commenced merely three months after signing of an agreement on the Bonthe Water Supply Project, which is aimed at restoring pipe born water to the Island after decades.
The Water and Sanitation Engineer, Ing. Sahr Augustine Sinah, who is currently the project Engineer, over the weekend, was on the Island to monitor and supervise the Project. He held meetings with senior stakeholders in the municipality to gauge the level of support and collaboration they have accorded the engineers implementing the project.
According to Ing. Sinah, the Project is a rapid development on the Island and with all the three contractors who are in-charge of the project currently working hard to make sure that they meet the deadline of mid-2021.
He said, the project has three-components; first is the desalination component which is turning of saltwater into fresh and safe drinking water, second component is the reconstruction of the dilapidated degremont facility and third is the construction of office space and accommodations for SALWACO operational staff.
It could be recalled that three contractors symbolically signed this contract in the full view of the beneficiaries. The IPCS Company will do the office space, workshop, store and accommodations and GIS Construction will be in charge of pipe networking within the city. Sewa and Guangjin Company, a joint-venture, will construct the new desalination plant and will also reconstruct the old degremont treatment Plant.
This project has now created the much needed jobs for young people in and around the Municipality.
This was among key messages from the Minister of Finance, Jacob Jusu Saffa during the signing ceremony, noting that the money for the reconstruction and construction of the Bonthe water supply project will give young people the opportunity to be part of their own development.
“The provision of safe drinking water in every part of Sierra Leone has a direct link to education and good health and job creation. Hence, investing now in water will reduce future cost in managing health crisis such as cholera and other water-borne diseases, at the same time keeping children healthy for education. This will in turn create employment for people in every part of the country,” Minister Jusu Saffa emphasized.
It is worthy to note that Bonthe Island has been abandoned for the last forty years and as such has gone without pipe borne water for that same period. Minister Saffa also thanked the President whom he described as “‘a talk and Do President’ who looks at every sphere of human development and has thought it fit to provide access to safe drinking water to all Sierra Leoneans including the people of Bonthe.”
By SALWACO Communications Unit
30/10/2020. ISSUE NO: 7940