Codevasf water tanks languish on hospital grounds – 09/30/2023 – Power

Steep slopes on a dirt and gravel road lead to the top of Serra do Inácio, on the border between Pernambuco and Piauí. On the paths that wind along the top of the hills, village residents face the challenge of isolation to access water, food and basic everyday items.

In Vila do Mel, a town in the municipality of Betânia do Piauí (PI), piped water is still a distant reality and residents depend on water trucks, but not all families have access to cisterns or boxes to store water.

A few kilometers away, in the village of Sítio Serra do Inácio in Santa Filomena (PE), the scenario is different: there is a large distribution of water tanks recorded in videos posted on social networks, reports of families who received more than one box and even cases of residents selling equipment donated by the federal government.

Betânia do Piauí and Santa Filomena are about 30 km from each other, they are separated by a dirt road and the border between the states. Cities have similar sizes and socioeconomic realities, but face disparities in access to water.

The city of Pernambuco received 2,333 water tanks for rural communities donated by Codevasf, a state-owned company linked to the Ministry of Integration and Regional Development and which has been used as a kind of “store for politicians” in the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) governments. and Lula (PT).

The city is a stronghold of former senator Fernando Bezerra Coelho (MDB), an influential name in politics in the backlands of Pernambuco. Last year, he gave a significant vote to Miguel Coelho (União Brasil) and Fernando Filho (União Brasil), sons of the then senator who ran for government and the Chamber.

The donation contract was signed in 2021, still during the Bolsonaro government. Even so, the city hall keeps dozens of water tanks stored on land behind the municipal hospital. Some of the equipment is already damaged due to the effects of the strong sun and lack of maintenance.

The stock of water tanks donated to the municipality would be enough to serve the equivalent of 77% of the city’s families.

But the distribution follows non-transparent criteria: there are people who registered and did not receive it, families who received more than one tank of water and even reports of equipment that ended up being sold by the beneficiaries.

Secretaries from the administration of Mayor Gildevan Melo (PSD) celebrate the deliveries in villages in the rural area of ​​the municipality, delivering water tanks one by one with photos and videos posted on their social networks.

In the village of Sítio da Serra do Inácio, dozens of boxes were distributed to families living in the region. Farmer Maria Nilza Amorim Silva, 62, was one of those who benefited from the box, which she began to use in addition to an old cistern she already had in her house.

Two of his daughters, who live in other houses in the same community, had not registered to receive the equipment. But that wasn’t a problem: they completed their accreditation on the day of the mayor’s visit and received their respective water tanks on the same day.

Teacher and farmer Expedita Ferraz, 53, registered at city hall, but remains on the waiting list. She already has a cistern donated by an NGO, but is asking for a water tank to try to maintain her vegetable production throughout the year and start planting acerola trees.

Without the certainty of water, it currently produces only in winter, when rainfall is sufficient to maintain rainfed production. During the dry season, the solution is to buy water from tanker trucks, but you need to have somewhere to store it.

“Here up in the mountains, the land is very fragile. The only way for us to really have water is with a reservoir. If these boxes came, they would be very welcome for us”, says Expedita, who presides over the Association of Small Producers Quilombolas from Sítio Serra do Inácio.

She criticizes the political use of the delivery of equipment by city politicians and says that donations often gain traction when the electoral calendar approaches. She also says that, in general, families who support the mayor have preference in access to water tanks.

“Whoever is on the mayor’s side has more priority. If he suspects that I don’t support him, he won’t hand over mine”, says the teacher, who says she is an ally of Mayor Gildevan Melo.

A few houses away, the farming couple Edilson Alves de Oliveira, 40, and Claudete Pereira da Silva, 47, use hoes to clear the land. Even without recurring access to water, they decided to try their luck and plant during the dry season.

They received one of Codevasf’s water tanks, but face a situation of water insecurity, as they depend on city water tankers to keep the reservoirs full. Edilson says that the ideal would be to have a dam or wells that guarantee water throughout the year.

About 10 km further, in the village of Vila do Mel, there is no running water in the houses and there are families who do not even have a cistern and depend on the good will of their neighbors. But the community is already in the territory of the city of Betânia do Piauí, in another state and under the management of another city hall.

The city of Piauí, which does not have running water, has not received any donation of cisterns or water tanks from Codevasf in recent years, despite the serious scenario of insecurity in access to water.

A resident of the community, retired farmer Naielene Ferreira, 64, does not have any type of reservoir in her house and depends on her daughter and the help of neighbors to have water in her daily life.

“It’s very difficult to be without water. I go days without washing clothes, sometimes I can’t clean the house. It’s not easy,” says Naielene.

She has been using the cistern at a neighbor’s house, but when the water runs out, she doesn’t always have the money to fill it with the water truck. In the community, pipeiros charge up to R$130 to fetch raw water from a dam.

In Vila do Mel, residents are served by more than one city hall. The central nucleus of the village is part of the municipality of Betânia, but a large part of the residents vote in Curral Novo do Piauí. In this way, the city hall serves part of the village’s houses with water from tanker trucks.

The mayor of Betânia do Piauí, Fábio Macedo (PP), confirms the difficulties in serving the population and says that the municipality has only two water trucks — one owned and one contracted — to supply the city’s homes. He also reported that he requested equipment from Codevasf, but was not answered.

Codevasf informed that its donations to municipalities are made after technical, legal and socioeconomic convenience assessment. The report was unable to contact the mayor of Santa Filomena, Gildevan Melo.