13 Dec 2015

Parliament has approved over P190 million as additional funds to the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources for the replacement of Glass Reinforced Plastic (GRP) pipes with steel pipes along the 26 kilometres section of the North South Carrier water transfer scheme.

In an interview, deputy permanent secretary for the ministry’s project management office, Mr Thatayaone Dedede, said they were planning to commission the newly replaced pipes together with the NSC II section from Moralane to Palapye.

He said the entire NSC I comprised of GRP, but they experienced frequent leaks in the 26km section around the Dikabea dam location. 

This is the section of the pipeline which was susceptible to intermittent bursts resulting in increased downtimes of the pipeline. Mr Dedede said they were hopeful that the water situation especially in the greater Gaborone area will normalise as they will also monitor the entire water transfer scheme for any possible replacement with steel.

In the last session of Parliament last week, Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Mr Kenneth Matambo told Parliament that Presidential Directive Cab 4 (B)/2015 approved a cash injection to support Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) operations and a special warrant of P560million was issued to augment the Water Planning and Development Project in March.

He said the funds included P388million as tariff subsidy and P172million for ongoing emergency capital projects. This, according to the minister, increased the 2014/15 annual budget by P560million.

For his part, Minister Kitso Mokaila said the steel pipes were used for reducing the costly maintenance of GRP. 

He said the intention was to purchase locally manufactured pipes, but local manufactures did not produce the much needed ductile iron pipes which were excellent in potable water transmission and distribution.

Meanwhile, the corporation is trying to fast track efforts to avert the water shortage down south. The Mmamashia Water Treatment Plant is back in operation following a shutdown last week to allow for work to facilitate the transfer of water from the NSCI pipeline to the Gaborone Waterworks Plant (GWW) for distribution to the villages in the vicinity of Gaborone. 

The Greater Gaborone area’s average demand surpasses supply by 32.9 million litres a day. Even with rationing, the demand surpasses supply by 18.2million litres a day.  Ends