Tanjoh Fridrick Tetuh, the mayor of Batibo council in the North West Region of Cameroon has disclosed that his council will organize a Water Forum on April 21, 2015.

The information was made public during the 2014 administrative, management and stores account session that took place in the conference hall of the Batibo council on April 1, 2015.

According to Tanjoh Fridrick, the 2015 Water Forum will permit the council to sign Memorandums of Understanding with CAMAAY. Besides, he also revealed that through the partnership, a chemical Engineer from France is currently conducting a baseline survey on the sustainable management of existing water schemes with emphasizes on the quality and treatment of water as well as the protection of catchment areas.

He lamented that accessibility to some water catchment is the municipality is poor and preoccupying. He said the main objective of the Forum is to reflect on ways on how water could be made available to each household in the municipality. Water is one of the most basic elements for life in his municipality.

Accordingly, he said that shortages of water and sanitation are priorities reasons why Batibo council is taking water issues seriously.

“Our intention is to design a water policy for our municipality and demarcate the catchment areas”. He also revealed that fortunately for the municipality, there are 21 water catchments which should be protected.

“We are establishing a tree nursery for the purpose and we intend to train water management committees for sustainability”. For example, he disclosed that the Guzan water supply scheme needs to be improved by connecting to another network while in Kuruku, poor maintenances is acute.

Talking to the press, Tanjoh Fridrick added that bringing stakeholders together will ignite communities to engage in the protection of water catchments, and maintenance of existing water schemes. One of the council commended the clarion call by the councilor of Ashong for other communities to tap water from their land.