17 Sep 2019

North West district Council chairman, Mr Duncan Enga says Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) is intensifying  efforts to improve reliability of water supply in some villages in the district.

Giving an update of the water situation in the district during the ongoing full council session, Mr Enga revealed that the low river inflows had affected domestic water availability in the district.

He cited Maun as one of the areas that had been severely affected by the drying up of the Thamalakane River.

“This reversed earlier efforts aimed at improving water situation in the village such as the construction of the Borolong surface water treatment plant and existing water and sewerage network optimisation,” he added.

To improve the situation, he said rehabilitation works were ongoing and 11 high yielding boreholes had so far been cleaned.

Out of the 11, nine were cleared for pump testing as the remaining two had collapsed and needed to be replaced.

Mr Enga revealed that the progress with pump testing was that three boreholes had been completed, one at Sexaxa and two at Tsutsubega wellfields adding that the machine used to test pumping had a breakdown and machine was undergoing repair.

The procedure for pumping, he said followed a sequence and lasted up to five days per borehole.

He observed that Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) had connected two boreholes to Maun water supply.

The council chairman noted that procurement of equipment for the rest of the seven boreholes was underway and was expected to be concluded during the month of September and the rest of the boreholes would be connected if water quality was not a hindrance.

In addition, the house learnt that that construction of a 1 200m3 capacity tank at Kunyere Booster station has already started.

The purpose of this tank among other things is to improve on the buffer storage capacity and to provide for prolonged pumping at high pressures without interrupting the water transmission to Maun village.   

The anticipated completion date of the tank construction is December 2019.

Councillors were further informed that WUC had been engaged in the connection of two boreholes that were drilled at Shorobe village and that the works started with the construction of a pipeline that distributes  water to the village. Mr Enga said the ongoing works include the construction of elephant buffer to protect the sites prior to borehole equipping and the construction of a new 500m3 capacity elevated tank.

He stated that additional funding for the procurement of a packaged desalination plant had been secured and tendering was ongoing noting that all the works were planned to be concluded by January 2020.

“May I also bring to your attention that Shorobe village is also one of the satellite villages included in the Maun phase II project,” he added.

Despite challenges experienced in executing planned projects, Mr Enga said government remained committed to efficient and responsible supply of high-quality potable water and waste water management services throughout the district.

He pointed out that during the current plan period, strategic water supply projects which sought to cater for many villages and settlements at a given locality were completed while some were either at procurement or construction stage.

Notable achievement, he said was the completion of the Seronga-Gudigwa Rural Village Water Supply project.

The project involved construction of a new surface water treatment plant and rehabilitation of infrastructure extending 70km from Seronga to Gudigwa through the villages and settlements of Teekae, Gunutsoga, Ndorotsha, Eretsha and Beetsha

He mentioned another strategic project entailing upgrading and rehabilitation of Shakawe Treatment Plant, Master Balancing Reservoir and transmission pipelines that was due for commissioning in January 2020. ENDS