Minister says 40% of all water supplies contaminated

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi revealed on Tuesday that around 40 percent of all water supplies in urban areas across the country are contaminated by feces collie.

This ghastly fact, which should alarm all city dwellers, was discovered after the ministry recently conducted extensive research on urban sanitation.

"In most houses in urban areas the bathroom is too close to the water source, thus the collie is absorbed into the water," Achmad told journalists after opening a one-day training course for government officials on controlling the quality of drinking water.

Achmad blamed such poor sanitation levels on people's ignorance.

"People tend to ignore these things, even though building a simple hut for a bathroom with a decent septic tank only costs Rp 11,000 (US$1.5)," he said, without explaining how his estimate for the cost of a septic tank could be so low.

Achmad warned that while people easily overlook such contamination, unclean water is the cause of many fatal illnesses including cholera, diarrhea and hepatitis.

"Each year more than 10,000 people die of diarrhea as a result of drinking contaminated water," he noted.

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1998 indicated that only 38 percent of homes in urban areas in Indonesia have access to clean tap water, supplied by the state-run water company (PAM).

Most urban residents either dig wells or purchase water for their needs.

Achmad believed that the high cost and rarity of unused land in urban areas, particularly in densely populated urban centers, has caused people to neglect the need for water sanitation facilities.

He further lamented that in the craze for development, much infrastructure development in Indonesia has been mistaken.

As an example, he said the infrastructure network supporting Indonesia's cellular phones is much better than Germany's, although the drinking water supply system is much worse.

"I find it this so odd, since compared to cellular phones water is one of the basic human needs," he remarked.

Efforts to improve the water supply system begun in 1992, when the government cooperated with the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) to improve underground plumbing works.

Yogyakarta and Bali were chosen as pilot projects for the cooperation.

Bali was identified by the minister as one of the few areas where water sanitation levels were high. In fact, he said the regency of Buleleng was the only place in Indonesia where tap water was safe to drink.

According to Achmad, cultural habits had a lot to do with water sanitation awareness.

"We do not know how many years it will take to have a system that works in all regencies in the country," Achmad said.

The one day training course, held jointly with GTZ, was aimed at improving officials' knowledge of water sanitation and to gather suggestions from regional offices about conditions in their respective region.

"Hopefully these trainees can become the backbone of the water sanitation program in the country," Achmad said.

The head of the Directorate of Water Sanitation Abdullah Munthalib said to ensure water quality control the ministry has distributed laboratory equipment for examining water quality to all regencies.

"The equipment can detect bacteriological and chemical levels in water. In remote areas we have sent water testing kits to each community health center," he added. (04)