The problem, according to Botswana Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) water works engineer Lucas Makepe, resulted from a raw water pipe burst that occurred last Saturday forcing a brief shutdown exercise. "We immediately informed BCL mine because they mainly rely on raw water for the smelter and fortunately not much was affected because the mine was also on shutdown," he added. He added that the delay to reinstate supply was due to the fact that it took them two days to clear the site where the burst occurred because of the high water pressure. Another cause of delay was due to rainy weather conditions that deterred the water works team from promptly attending to the problem. Makepe said a contractor who was working along the pipeline destroyed the pipe. "Reinstatement of the pipe was only managed on Tuesday afternoon and then we allowed water to gravitate," he added.Makepe said treatment at the Selebi-Phikwe plant started as early as 4am yesterday and water was opened for consumption at 6pm the same day. This meant that the whole town would have water supply restored by the same afternoon while villages like Sefhophe would have their water supply restored a few hours later.
