02 May 2019

Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) has announced a 13-day shutdown of North-South Carrier beginning May 6.

Lobatse-based water works superintendent Mr James Moyo told the town’s management stakeholder engagement forum April 30 that the shutdown, the third so far, would be effected May 6-22.

He further said phases four and five would be carried out between June and July as well as August and September respectively.

Mr Moyo said the shutdown would affect the greater Gaborone area which included Lobatse.

He explained that the corporation encountered problems with phase two shutdown which took longer than anticipated due to heavy rains that fell at  the time.

It was hoped that phase three would not take longer than  expected, Mr Moyo said.

“We experienced a lot of water shortage during the phase two shutdown because of the heavy rains that happened at the time and also the power cut.There was a lot of mud in the water which made things difficult for us,” he said.

He said WUC was busy trying to solve the shortage of water in Mmathethe through a project of sourcing water from Rramonna.

“WUC (management) has agreed to give us funds for this project and we are working on it. We are doing this because Mmathethe is one of the villages that have no water at all,” he said.

Another WUC official in Lobatse, Ms Dothodzo Chalashika said the water ‘metre’ was the responsibility of both the customer and WUC therefore both parties had to work together in taking care of it to avoid damages.

Ms Chalashika said the corporation faced a problem of lack of access to customers’ property.

“We have a problem to access customer property because sometimes customers just lock their gates when it’s time for us to take a reading from the meter,” she said.

She explained that in such cases, WUC resorted to estimating the readings.

Ms Chalashika encouraged customers to open gates when it was time for metre reading or ensure there was somebody at home or submit the reading themselves.

Customers were also advised to ensure that their meters were registered with WUC.ENDS