By Kebba Ansu Manneh
Access to clean drinking water to the residents of Jinack Kajarta and Nijji has always been a nightmare for decades and still an unresolved situation with no sign of future improvement with the coming into power of President Adama Barrow.
Residents who spoke with this reporter expressed concerns and worries regarding the lack of drinking water issue that continues to hit the two communities of the Jinack Island, and the worst part is that in this modern age, they are still using donkey carts and boats to transport drinking waters from other communities in Jinack Island but in Senegal side.
“Nothing has change so far, we are still fetching drinking water from our Senegalese neighboring communities of Jinack Barra and Jattako. This situation is unbearable and it causing huge financial losses to many residents of the Island especially the less privilege and vulnerable people,” Amadou Manneh, Chairman of Jinack Nijji Village Development Committee (VDC) disclosed.
He added: “At least, by average, every household consumes more than twenty gallons of twenty liters waters and every gallon is costing D25. Some of the families cannot afford this amount to buy drinking water on daily basis so they continue to depend on the salt water that is accessible in the village.”
According to him, any resident who drinks fresh water either bought it in Jinack Senegal or in Barra and Banjul, adducing that this situation has been communicated to the government of the Gambia without any response.
He observed further that if the government of Senegal can afford to connect their Island villages with pipe borne water and electricity from hundreds of kilometers inside the Senegal, Gambian government should also do the same thing for residents of these communities.
He noted that the Senegalese government seems to be more concern about the wellbeing of their citizens in the Jinack Island than the counterpart, Gambian government.
Ousman Janneh, another resident of the Island also expressed his concern over the persistent of water problem the communities of Jinack are going through, disclosing that residents who are not well off find it very hard to get drinking water because they lack the finance capability.
According to him, lack of drinking water at Jinack Kajarta and Nijji has been in existence since in the era of the First Republic, noting that the subsequent governments of Yahya Jammeh and Adama Barrow have not changed anything to improve anything in Jinack Island.
He renewed his calls to government, area council and philanthropists to offer help for the communities of Kajarta and Nijji to have access to pipe borne drinking water, noting that the lack of drinking water in the two communities is having a negative bearing on their lives and livelihoods.
Many others who spoke to this reporter expressed similar sentiments, adducing that many families goes for weeks without having access to clean drinking water compared to their Senegalese neighbors living in Jinack Barra and Jinack Jattako.
