Water Committee

The Bali Nyonga people were one of the few, back in 1952 to have running water long before all its neighbors. It came about as a result of war reparations paid to them by its neighbors after the 1952 inter tribal war. The water project was constructed with the help of the Germans who back then were our colonial masters. The water was run by gravity with very minimal cost of operation borne by the local rural council. There were public taps in front of all major compounds and intersections in Bali. In the early 1990s SNEC came in with the notion of expanding the supply of water to meet the growth of the village. The main weakness was that they drastically limited the number of public taps to less than 10, in a village which had about 40 to 50 public taps. Their idea was for major compounds to install personal taps and pay monthly for the services. This was the end of free water for the people and the beginning of water Bills for the local population. On February, 24th 1994 the population revolted against what was believed to be a rip off by SNEC who were not only foreign to Bali but were out to make too much profit. It was a general feeling that Bali had their water supply project before SNEC came and they did not do anything special to justify taxing the local population. The revolution was very peaceful and successful that within 24 hours all the SNEC employees were out of the Sub-division. On February 25th, 1994 under the able leadership of Ba Gwannua Ndangam and Ba Tita Fokum the Bali Community Water Committee (BCWC) was formed to oversee the smooth running of the water project in Bali Sub-division. They were both elected as Chairman and Vice-Chairman respectively. The committee agreed that all Sons and Daughters of Bali both at home and abroad were to contribute financially for the smooth running of the new water system in Bali which presently runs on electricity and not gravity as before. It was also agreed that returning the water supply back to gravity was to remain the main goal of the Committee. SNEC has refused to account for all the equipments that were remove from the old site till today. As any publicly run organization, the Water Committee holds a General Assembly meeting once a year during which members of the various branches of the committee present their reports to the public, and the general population gets a chance to ask questions. It has been a success so far and water supply has been expanded to more than fifty percent of the rural area in Bali. The BCA-USA Bali Community Water Committee was founded by Ba Titamokumi in May of 1996 and he has since been the Chair of that Committee. BCA-USA and the Bali people in the Washington DC metro area have been major contributors toward the water supply effort in Bali. To help those back home, Ba Titamokumi and the BCA-USA Executive came up with the BLOCK PAYMENT PLAN - where by, those in the United States can make yearly payment of their family’s water bill here in the States, and BCA-USA send them to Bali. It started with three members participating and today it has about twenty members who are taking advantage of the PLAN. If you are interested in participating in the PLAN, please contact any member of the BCA-USA National Executive Council for more details

If you have any questions, please contact the water committee chairperson
Ni Jella Kaspa at jellakaspa1@yahoo.com