Water not a problem, but infrastructure

Maranyane Ngwanaamotho | Monday March 10, 2014 08:34

 

The Minister revealed this when briefing the membership of Botswana Confederation of Commerce Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM) members on water and electricity situation on Tuesday.

Mokaila affirmed that the North South Carrier 1 (NSC 1) is not reliable, and the ministry therefore has a plan for a second pipeline. 'We have already finished the pipeline (NSC 2) between Moralane and Dikgatlhong and they are working on pump stations now,' he said.

The water pipe from Moralane to Palapye is expected to be complete by December this year. The last part, which is from Palapye to Gaborone, is expected to be complete by 2017, Mokaila said.

In addition, the problematic 26-kilometre stretch along the North South Carrier One, will be fixed with steel, instead of glass-reinforced plastic and is expected to be complete by July. The section stretches from Palapye to the north, and it loses between 10 and 20 million liters of water every time there is a pipe burst.

The ministry has also issued a tender to build a pipeline from Gaborone to Thamaga, Moshupa and Kanye.

Furthermore, the ministry is exploring a well field in the Masama area as well as 30 boreholes, which will give between 40 and 60 million litres everyday.  The projects are expected to be complete by September.

'All over the country, we have projects and that is why I say that water is not the challenge. The challenge is conveyance, the challenge is infrastructure,' says Mokaila.

Meanwhile, with only three months of survival left, Gaborone dam is currently delivering only 45 million instead of 88 million litres a day.

According to the chief executive officer of Water Utilities Corporation Godfrey Mudanga currently the dam is just above 13 percent, whilst Bokaa Dam ,which had dried up is at 42.2 percent. This shows that there is no significant increase in dams in the south. In the north dams are either full or have spilt at some point, he said.

The greater Gaborone receives a half allocation of 10 million litres per day from Molatedi dam, and 20 million litres from Bokaa dam, below its normal daily consumption of 125-45 million litres.

In addition, Mokaila stated that  the government has decided that all the water infrastructure projects under NDP 11 should be given priority.

“One is to see how to double capacity of water coming to greater Gaborone and the ministry's decision is to put up pump station number four on the North South Water Carrier. There are three pump stations from Serule in addition to gravity for water to greater Gaborone. We are going through tendering to force water and throughput to greater Gaborone up to 110 million litres per day from 60 million litres,' he said.