07 Feb 2019

Gumare village in Ngamiland District is currently suffering the worst water shortage and the crisis seems far from over.

These water outages have been going on for a long time now and have severely affected every resident, institutions such as hospitals and schools and also local businesses.

The situation is at its nastiest point as these are days of misery for Gumare people since they barely have one of the basic needs for humans.

Okavango Junior Secondary School is one of the most affected by the crisis.

Speaking in an interview, the school head, Mr Ikobile Mmusinyane said since June last year, they had not seen a single drop of water at the school.

He said they relied on private water bowsers for supply, otherwise the school would have long closed.

Mr Mmusinyane noted that priority was given to the kitchen and hostels to keep the school running.

Furthermore, Mr Mmusinyane said sometimes they were forced to release day scholars immediately after lunch.

This, he said, impacted negatively on the junior certificate results at Okavango JSS.

He said the situation made it difficult to manage the school.

Student’s final year Agriculture projects, he said, were also affected.

Meanwhile, in a series of kgotla meetings addressed by Ngami Member of Parliament  recently, officials from the Water Utilities Corporation attributed the water outages to the burdened Sepopa Treatment Plant, which could not meet the growing demand.

The plant, which supplies Gumare and other villages, is also said to be too old. Ends