EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS IN KOBOKO CALLED TO BUDGET FOR SEWAGE MANAGEMENT

Part of the treatment plant. Photo by Godwin Abedican.
 
By Godwin Abedican
Arua
 
Schools in Koboko Municipality and district have been tasked to take deliberate moves towards ensuring that they have allocations for environmental safety and cleanliness in regard to school sewage management.
 
The two demonstrative units have been facing challenges of sludge management but the directorate of water development under the Ministry of Water and Environment on Wednesday June 11, 2025 handed over to Koboko Municipality a fecal sludge treatment plant constructed with funding from the World Bank, which is seen as a long-lasting solution to the previous challenges.
 
Engineer Ronald Olara, the cluster manager for west Nile under the Northern Umbrella of Water and Sanitation that will be managing the operations of the facility urges that education institutions must make health and environmental safety a priority.
 
“The desludging is not free. The institutions be it government or private must have it in their plans that, as an institution at a certain time they will need to desludge their latrines and they should be able to know how much they need for that. Institutions receive conditional grants and any other support. So, they need to factor this in their planning to see that when the umbrella or any other private operator comes to desludge, there is a fee” he disclosed.
 
Moga Muhamad, the Senior Inspector of Schools for Koboko municipality on his part, implores parents and stakeholders to fully stand in support of schools towards environmental safety.

“Learning institutions are one of the areas where a lot of sludge waste is generated, which waste needs to be catered for. The treatment system has come timely. We have been having a lot of challenges in the schools. The costs of draining our VIP latrines have been very high. Much as parents have been supporting, given other demands within the schools we have not been emptying these latrines regularly and this has been affecting the toilets around, the health facilities around and the environment in general. With this newly constructed treatment plant, we now have the opportunity to utilize it well to save our environment,” Moga said in an interview.
 
“One thing we shall have to do is to sensitize the parents to support the schools and have a budget there. When we involve the parents in budget formulation, they help to support us in other areas. We also have some money within our grants especially for government aided schools and so, they will have to annually prioritize certain amount of money for waste management and for the private schools we expect them to also have that on budget,” he added.
 
Meanwhile, Ajonye Florence, the Deputy Mayor Koboko Municipality promised to engage the institutions for response to this call as learner’s safety has been compromised for long.
 
“It’s another responsibility for us to go to the institutions to see that there is some component of a small vote for this particular item because if not informed, they may act unaware about the presence of the facility and continue to pollute our environment,” Ajonye pledged.
 
Koboko municipality and district have in the past battled sewage management especially fecal waste with some ending up being dumped in wetlands while others have been digging temporary pits to bury such wastes from the institutions exposing the community to outbreak of diseases.  
 
 
 
The integrated water management and development project (IWMDP) construction of Namasale water supply and sanitation system and sanitation facilities.