WUC�s partnership with GENK comes to an end

Pauline Dikuelo | Thursday May 7, 2015 15:51

Established in 2012, the main objective of the project was to increase the capacity of WUC to operate its wastewater infrastructure and improve its maintenance.

In his remarks, WUC Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nginani Mbayi disclosed that the project, which was budgeted at P380,000, has been successful, and that Francistown City Council (FCC) has since handed it over to WUC.

“We are now reaping rewards of what FCC started with the city of Genk,” he said.

He added that the project would help the corporation to produce better effluence and at the same time increase availability of pumping stations of the wastewater system.

He said that through the project, WUC was able to conduct training of maintenance personnel, receive expert advice on the crafting of refurbishment tenders for Mambo and Glen Valley treatment plants. However, Mambo is on hold due to financial constraints.

The partnership has also assisted systems integrator to configure and adopt SCADA technology to ensure full operation of automation system.    However Mbayi said there were some challenges faced by the implementation of the project.

Lack of a dedicated budget to address faults identified in operation of the plant, recommendations proposed by Aquafin were not always implemented mainly due to unhealthy financial position among others.

He noted that the corporation wishes to engage the EU and Genk city in a number of areas that are critical to get the plants running effectively and efficiently in a more optimised manner. The Ambassador of EU to Botswana and Southern African Development Community (SADC) Alex Baum said that it’s very relevant to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on reducing 50 percent of the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water. He said that twinning such as the one between the cities of Francistown and Genk could be a great model of cooperation.

“Twinning partnership can provide a useful platform for knowledge transfer and is a great way of bringing people from Botswana and Europe to work together for a common future,” he said. He added that he hopes that the project funded by the EU will have some lasting positive effect.