Civil servants join hands to provide clean water

Syaiful Amin, The Jakarta Post, Yogyakarta

To ease the economic burden of impoverished residents in Gunung Kidul regency, Yogyakarta, local civil servants have voluntarily donated money to buy clean water for the poor, who are the worst affected by the prolonged drought.

"It (the donation) is not an order from above, but an initiative purely from the lower levels (of government) for humanitarian reasons," Gunung Kidul Regent Subechi told The Jakarta Post here on Wednesday.

He said there were around 600 civil servants in his administration and that they had given whatever they could to help provide clean water for the poor.

Officials of Echelon V of the regional government have generally donated Rp 25,000 each, while those from Echelon II gave up to Rp 200,000 each.

Drought has continued to spread in Yogyakarta this month, causing crop failures throughout most of the province.

Gunung Kidul is suffering the worst of the drought, with at least 84 of its 146 villages facing severe water shortages.

Most of the water sources in the regency, especially the ponds on which many local people rely for clean water, have dried up. As a result, the majority of villagers have been forced to buy clean water from the local administration, which has sent trucks to deliver water to the villages.

However, only a few villagers can afford to buy the clean water provided by the local tap water company.

Subechi said his administration had allocated a small fund to help provide clean water for the local people. "This year, we have allotted only Rp 300 million (US$35294) from the budget for the purpose. Of course, it will not be enough to address the problem, with water shortages in more than a half the villages in Gunung Kidul."

He said the donation from civil servants would help ease the local government's burden in providing clean water.

The regent said this year's drought was worse than last year's, as no rain had fallen since May. "Last year, the rains stopped in June."

Secretary of the Gunung Kidul administration Sugito, coordinator of the fund collection, could not say how much money had been collected from local civil servants so far.

"We are still calculating the donations. All the money will be used to buy clean water for poor residents," he said.

He also mentioned that his administration had built a water pipe network to supply water to at least 72 villages, but it was not yet operational due to a lack of electricity to pump water from reservoirs.