Africa-Press – Uganda. The Lwengo rural Sub County chairperson Lawrence Kizito has threatened to close schools that send learners to valley dams to fetch water amid increasing cases of drowning.
Mr Kizito’s warning comes after a senior three student of Hope Integrated Secondary School Samuel Mugerwa, 18, and Ivan Mukisa, a 35-year-old teacher at Hope Junior School in Kyetume Village, Lwengo District drowned in a valley dam on Tuesday.
The incident that left many people angry forced the LCIII chairperson to pass a resolution that he thinks will help people in the area.
According to Kizito, students are sent to school to study and parents pay a lot of money to see their children thrive in the future.
“School administrators ought to hire people to dig wells but not learners. We ask all schools without tapped water to connect it,” Mr Kizito said.
He however tasked parents to always ask their children whenever they return home whether they were sent to valley dams so that they can report to the leaders to punish the schools.
Kizito’s decision was supported by Lwengo District Chairperson Ibrahim Kitatta who said that teachers must respect students regardless of their age.
Mr Kitatta said that some schools can extend tap water at their premises but because they think students can fetch it from the dam, they end up using them which is against the law.
“At least if they hired people to clean up the dam, it would be fair than sending a student,” Kitatta said. Kitatta added that it is the LCI’s responsibility to clean up wells during the “bulungi bwa nsi” activities.
Relatives of the deceased persons want the police to arrest the school administrators wondering how their people ended up being cleaners of the valley dam.
The Southern Police Spokesperson Twaha Kasirye said that the police are still hunting for the heads of the schools to answer the charges against them.
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