21 Feb 2022

Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) and European Union recently joined hands to clean Botswana’s biggest dam, Dikgathong.
Dikgathong Dam has a capacity of 400 million cubic metre, supplies Gaborone and surrounding areas through the North South Carrier two and is currently 90 per cent full, which is enough to supply the stated areas with water for two years without any inflow.
The clean-up campaign was the third to be held by Water Utilities Corporation and European Union after Bokaa Dam in 2018 and Gaborone Dam in 2019.
“We had a successful clean-up campaign to ensure that we continue to preserve the sanctity of the dam so that it is not polluted, especially from plastics because treatment of plastics is not possible,” Water Utilities Corporation chief executive officer, Mr Gaselemogwe Senai stated.
He said if it were possible to treat water for plastic pollution, the cost of treatment was going to be borne by the community through tariffs.
Mr Senai said it was important to trap pollutants at the source.
On other issues, he thanked the community for their willingness to give up their cattle posts and ploughing fields to pave way for the construction of the dam.
Explaining Water Utilities Corporation’s partnership with European Union, Mr Senai said the deal was brought about by the European Investment Bank, from which Francistown Water Master Plan was borne.
He said the corporation also approached the bank for a loan to build the dam, which had already been serviced.
“We are grateful to the European Union Head of Delegation to Botswana and SADC, Mr Jan Sadek and your investment partners.”
For his part, Mr Sadek said Dikgathong Dam was an incredible construction, whose water was ‘life’.
He said the pula currency demonstrated how much Batswana valued the rain and water as a resource that needed to be safeguarded due to its scarcity.
Mr Sadek said the main aim of the event was to raise awareness on safeguarding and keeping water clean, adding that every year millions of tonnes of plastic ended up in the oceans and sadly it took hundreds of years for the plastics to degrade.
Moreover, he said plastic degraded into tiny pieces that could be eaten by fish and enter the food chain, adding that 95 per cent of marine litter was at the bottom of the oceans, causing damage to seabed, the fauna and flora.
Mr Sadek said only five per cent of the litter was washed ashore, therefore, when cleaning dams, ‘we are only seeing the tip of an iceberg’.
He thanked the children for their participation in the litter-picking exercise, saying that it presented an opportunity to share a collective effort to keep the environment clean and learn about the importance of avoiding waste in particular plastic waste.
“If children learn to act responsibly, they will do so even when they are grown up,” he said.
He commended Water Utilities Corporation  for the partnership with European Union, which he said was growing in leaps and bounds.
The exercise, he said, was in line with European Union’s cooperation with Botswana, which has seen some of the union’s activities in the SPEDU region, in particular the Platjan Bridge managed well.
“We shall ensure that the road is being constructed to join the bridge with the tarred road.”
Mr Sadek added that in future, European Union  would focus on climate change at national level, as it was a threat to survival of humanity and had a devastating impact on biodiversity, water resources, agriculture and extreme weather.
He said all of these required global and joint action, hence European Union was committed to spending 30 per cent of its global funding to support climate objectives.
“This will be one of our priority areas in our cooperation for the coming seven years,” Mr Sadek said.
He furthermore said the green transformation that European Union wanted to support comprised areas such as sustainable energy, biodiversity, conservation, climate adaptation and sustainability, as well as  circular and green economy including waste management.
“We will support government in its work to improve the country’s climate resilience and unlock its renewable energy potential,” Mr Sadek said.
Area MP, Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi commended both Water Utilities Corporationand European Union for this initiative and choosing to host the event in Robelela.
He said besides helping in the construction of Platjan Bridge, European Union  refurbished Selebi Phikwe Airport and connected electricity to horticulture farms along Motloutse River.
He said Dikgathong Dam had potential to create employment for the people of Robelela, hence European Union was a critical stakeholder to help government deliver on this.
Mr Molebatsi said European Union  had also partnered with SPEDU to help make the tourism Master Plan for Dikgathong Dam, something that should be applauded. ENDS