Water is life?
In case you did not know, the slogan— other people call it motto— of the Blantyre Water Board (BWB) is: ‘water is life’.
This tells me that, in the considered view of BWB, water is so important it fuels engines of living.
It entails that water sits at the stool of livelihood where it provides the axis of life. Put simply, life cannot be lived without water.
Until the actions of BWB suggested differently, I thought slogans are used as a guide or rule of behaviour or as an expression of aims or ideals.
Because if they were, BWB would not have just lived its creed, but would have made sure the residents of Blantyre see the ideals being lived.
As you are reading this, many parts of Blantyre are dry, literally. They have been like this for several weeks now.
Like many times before, BWB has issued a couple of press releases acknowledging the existence of the problem and, consequently, extending tired apologies “for the inconvenience this may have caused you.”
They attribute the problem to some work that is being carried out in some area of the city allegedly to improve the water transmission, whatever that means!
I can assure you, I have no issues with whatever work is being done and for whatever purpose it is meant, even if the claims were the work of fiction that has been on previous occasions.
What matters to me is that when I turn on my tap water should flow, and when I twist the knob on the water tank, my toilet should flush.
But this is not what is happening.
Therefore, I get irritated whenever I see the press releases because to me they only pass for a scheme of propaganda where BWB is trying to sugarcoat a water crisis by seducing unsuspecting consumers with worn-out promises that work to improve water availability is being done.
I dare say, BWB is exploiting the docility of our attitudes to normalise a situation, which ordinarily should be offensive, by not improvising mechanisms for mitigating the adverse effects innocent consumers are taking at the hands of the water crisis.
Just what the heck is the meaning of ‘water is life’ if BWB cannot even begin to see the pressing need of introducing water bowsers into the affected areas for people with dry taps and empty toilet tanks to access water?
A press release that does not provide a consolation regarding contingency measures of atoning for the pain of experiencing dry taps and empty toilet tanks is an offensive insult to the consumer.
And any apology that is made simply out of the need of filling the remaining spaces in the skeleton of a traditional press statement, using overused phrases and clichés, is nothing more than an unnecessary supply of supplementary exasperation to an already frustrated water user.
It goes without need of saying that, by virtue of its mandate, BWB knows that almost all city dwellers rely on running taps for their water. It should naturally follow, therefore, that when decisions are taken to interrupt traffic in the taps, ‘fall back ons’ must be in place.
Things cannot just be left to take care of themselves.
Back in the days, each time a disruption of water occurred or was caused, BWB made sure that its water bowsers showed up in the affected areas to supply water.
Maybe in those days, BWB had human beings with the presence of realising that water being life had to be made available to users when their taps run dry.
