Investigate WUC now

Mmegi Editor | Thursday December 18, 2014 12:18

If that suggestion is carried through, it will be a welcome move.  The investigation is critical andshould  therefore be done as a matter of urgency.

Not only that; the investigation should be comprehensive and not be limited to the billing system. We wish to inform the VP that just as many villagers have had their water connections disconnected following unexplained exhorbitant fees, there are customers who have been waiting for water connection to their homesteads and businesses for more than six months.

Just outside Gaborone, the Mogoditshane WUC office has suspended water connections to homesteads “until further notice”. Another issue that should be looked into is whether the WUC policy on excavation for water pipes to plots is not counterproductive.

Unlike its predecessor, the Water Affairs Department, the Corporation does not allow individuals to do excavation to get water connection, which contributes to delays. We are likely to find ourselves in a strange situation similar to what is happening with land allocation, where hundreds of thousands of applicants have been on the waiting list for land allocation for decades now.

This investigation should also probe whether or not WUC has enough manpower to cope with the workload, and whether the decision to transfer this huge responsibility to WUC was well thought out.  Water is a very important resource for human survival, and for any economy to compete or attract foreign investors. Botswana is no exception. With the very limited rainfall that the country is experiencing, all resources should be channelled to water conservation. However, that is not the case in our country and we find ourselves swimming in man-made lakes from leaking water pipes because WUC cannot attend to such on time.  Commentators with expertise on water issues have stated that millions of litres of water are lost in leaking pipes everyday, yet WUC doesn’t seem to realise this.

It is stranger that amid all this evidence of negligence, the government is now considering building a multi-billion-pula water pipeline from Lesotho to bring in more water. We are of the view that the two parties – WUC and government - should first address local problems before even thinking about spending any more of the taxpayers’ money on the Lesotho project.  WUC has also shut down boreholes that used to supplement what the national dams were producing for consumption. For the past three years, government has told us many times that Ramotswa and Masama boreholes were to be opened, but nothing has materialised.  We urge the VP to speed up this investigation before it is too late.