07 Dec 2015

Water supplied to Jwaneng is said to be safe for drinking.  This is contradictory to the community’s believe that it can pose serious health issues because of the lime it contains.

When addressing the Jwaneng full council meeting recently, acting deputy director in the department of water affairs, Mr Ogopotse Motsewabathata, informed the council that the water supplied to the town contained calcium carbonate, which was healthy for the body.

He said the community should not be alarmed to see the reaction of the water in their electrical appliances, explaining that it was normal for calcium carbonate to react that way on electrical appliances such as kettles and irons.

He stated that the residue of the calcium carbonate on the electrical appliances did not mean it reacted the same way in the human body.   Mr Motsewabathata was responding to questions raised by councillors Olga Ditsie, Bankinyana Montsiemang and Obed Monkge, who wanted to know when the purification of drinking water would be done in their town because the lime might pose health issues in the community.

He said the town was under class two level in supply of water, adding that government was working towards having structures that will make sure that the whole country received class one water supply as per the World Health Organisation mandate.

The councillors were further assured that the dams along the upstream of Gaborone Dam were not posing any threat to the dam, but were rather strategically situated as they acted as a sand trap to Gaborone Dam.

Mr Motsewabathata said authorities were working on ways to get water from Zambia and Lesotho. He advised that to curb the challenge of water shortage in the country, all stakeholders needed to work together to achieve the goal. ENDS