Water Utilities plans to duplicate North South carrier

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Friday November 14, 2008 00:00

Speaking to Engineering News on Tuesday, the CEO of Water Utilities Corporation, Fred Maunge, said the initial North-South water carrier project had cost the utility about P1,5 billion pula (approximately $350-million) and had started to convey water in 2000.

The scheme conveying water from a dam in the Motloutse River in northern Botswana along transfer pipelines was powered by four pump stations and a water treatment plant. It links the Letsibogo Dam and major wellfields to Gaborone through a large diameter pipeline 400 kilometres in length. It also services small towns along the transfer pipeline with raw water.

If it is adopted, funding for the duplication project will most likely come from Botswana's own bond market which has improved significantly over the past few years.

'We used to fund our projects with loans from the likes of the World Bank,' says Maunge. 'The funding was given to us in hard currency, in either dollars or pounds. But we could not afford to pay those loans because of currency fluctuations, so loans became unaffordable.'

Maunge adds that the Water Utilities Corporation would also welcome infrastructure investment from the government, which would be more useful in the form of equity investments rather than grants.

Botswana is well known for its arid conditions, and the country also had minimal surface water supplies. About 80 percent of the national demand was met from groundwater.

In the WUC annual report 2007/08, Maunge says the North-South carrier is expected to come under tremendous pressure due to government plans to connect the major villages of Serowe, Molepolole and Kanye.

'The NSC water supply scheme underwent a major shutdown at the beginning of June 2007 to enable the necessary maintenance work to be carried out during (the) winter season when water demand is at its lowest,' the report says.

'Following observation over the years, it became necessary to repair some valves and introduce new ones at selected points along the carrier in order to facilitate operations and reduce water losses during repairs. This maintenance work took longer than expected and commissioning could not be achieved during the year.'

WUC's water supply sources were in a relatively satisfactory position in the 2007/08 period with raw water stored in all the utility's dams amounting to 85.2 percent of full supply capacity, Maunge's report continues.

'This figure was a significant improvement when compared to 67.1 percent recorded in the previous period,' it says. 'In response to the prolonged droughts, the Corporation prepared its three-year drought management strategy whose overall goal was to ensure sustainable water supply to its customers. This (is) achieved by enhancing water use efficiency through appropriate water conservation and demand management interventions.'

For the period 2007/08, revenue for the Corporation was at P469 million, which was a 6-percent jump from the previous period. Total water sales quantities increased from 45,032 tcm in 2006/07 to 46 582 tcm in 2007/08.

Total operating costs increased by 18 percent from P211 million in 2007 to P253 million in 2008. Net surplus for the period was P208 million, indicating a marginal 0.9 increase from P206.2 million in 2007.

Given the envisaged expansion of WUC's mandate which will see it take over water supply to more villages, the report says the outlook for 20088/09 indicates a challenging operating environment.