Donatus Njong Fonyuy, Mayor of Kumbo Council in Bui Division of the North West Region of Cameroon, has expressed worries over the acute water crisis that has hit his municipality.

According to Mayor Njong, if this situation should persist, his municipality risk being ravaged by an epidemic.

“Last year was one of the most difficult years in the history of Kumbo. We witnessed acute water shortage more than ever before. Some quarters in Kumbo have gone without a drop of water for more than a year now and the inhabitants are forced to fetch water from doubtful sources. We all know the health dangers it poses,” the municipal authority asserted.

The Mayor was speaking to reporters in his administrative jurisdiction.

The situation is even more precarious in the Divisional headquarter as both young and old, poor and rich Fons and subjects alike crisscross the town  in search of this precious liquid.

Many Kumbo denizens think that the recent water crisis is not unconnected to the feud between the Nso Palace and the Kumbo Council over the control and supply of the precious liquid.

It would be recalled that the present water crisis rocking the Bui Divisional headquarters, Kumbo, started some three years back like a confrontation between the Mayor of Kumbo and the Paramount Ruler of the Nso people.

The water scheme, donated to the Nso people by the Canadian Government, through late Prof. Bernard Fonlon, became a bone of contention between the two most influential people in Kumbo.

While the Fon, Shem Mbinglo II, said it was his legitimate right as the custodian of the culture and tradition of the Nso people to control the water scheme, the Mayor of Kumbo, Donatus Njong Fonyuy, argued that his council was in a better place to manage the water scheme, given that, Kumbo was no longer the small village that it used to be, but that it has metamorphosed to a big town which the Palace was no longer capable of adequately managing the scheme under the Kumbo Water Authority(KWA).

The tussle over the control of the scheme became so serious that the Government, through the Prime Minister, Philemon Yang, had to intervene and conduct an audit at the water management structure.

Until date, the result of the audit is still being awaited. As the Water crisis surged on, rumours went wild that the Government was considering handing over the management of the water scheme to the Cameroon Water Corporation, CAMWATER, a move that drew widespread criticism and rejections from the local population.

However, as the belligerents and the Government keep politicking over who should control the water scheme; the population is busy scooping water from doubtful sources just to survive. After the common axiom says “water is life.”

Many people feared that if the present acute water crisis continues, the locals make take to the streets to protest the phenomenon.