This archive report was first published on 28 August 2019.
On August 28, 2019, a long-standing dispute over a shared water intake in Kutus escalated, pitting 33 families resettled in 2015 against the Kutus East Water supply project management.
Recently, two individuals, Moses Mithamo and Michael Mathenge, were arrested for interfering with the water flow without the consent of the project managers.
The project owners are demanding that the intake be expanded to provide two independent intake chambers to avoid any future conflict.
According to Dan Adino, the National Irrigation Board's dam project resettlement officer, the conflict could escalate if not addressed urgently.
Adino stated in an internal memo: “In order to avert further conflict between the families we settled at the village in 2015, we have taken over the intake site with the aim of undertaking correctional construction to restore the design to its original status”.
The families, who were resettled from Rukenya village to make way for the construction of the Thiba dam, are now facing a severe water shortage, with the two storage tanks that supply irrigation water and domestic use being empty.
Michael Mathenge expressed the families' frustration, saying, “This is worse than where we came from.”
