Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) has embarked on an initiative to implement mitigation measures aimed at reducing waste water spillages in Kasane and Kazungula, which continue pose health risks, a harm to aquatic ecosystems and environmental pollution.
The spillages are due to malfunctioning system equipment, low pressures at the pump stations and discarding non-friendly foreign objects into the waste-water system by users, causing blockages and spillages.
Chobe District Council Chairman, Johane Chenjekwa has revealed during this week’s full council meeting that an example of such mitigations is the sewer line diversion under construction at Chobe Marina which aims to address the sewer spillage by Forestry and Spar buffers.
According to Chenjekwa, WUC further engages the community through outreach activities, Kgotla meetings and engagement of pupils from primary/junior secondary schools. All interactions are designed to disseminate information on the correct use of this sewerage system.
Over the past years, there have been concerns from various quarters about poor water drainage system in Kasane and Kazungula which led to waste water spillages into the Chobe River. The situation was observed in the Kasane-Kazungula especially near residential and business areas.
In an interview, Ministry of Environment and Tourism Permanent Secretary, Boatametse Modukanele had previously told this publication that in order to address the situation they have engaged the WUC to identify the spillages at some pump stations so that they can be fixed.
Modukanele had stated that the water system was old, adding a sustainable solution would be implemented.
Moreover, Chenjekwa has this week further informed the council that the water supply from the Kasane New Treatment Plant has been stable throughout this quarter and adequately meets the demand for all the eight villages at a daily supply volume of 7.1 mega liters per day or 7.1 million liters per day with the plant carrying a maximum storage volume of 32ML or 32 million liters of water. He said that only Pandamatenga village is supplied by two boreholes which are augmented from time to time with water bowsing as the water demand exceeds water supply in Pandamatenga.
“Water Utilities Corporation remains hopeful that the request submitted under NDP12 for a pipeline from Lesoma to Pandamatenga will be successful as this will alleviate the water shortage currently being experienced at Pandamatenga Village,” he said.
Chenjekwa has further expressed that despite the recently ended debt amnesty campaign which had offered customers who applied for it a 50% debt reduction for all invoices older than December 2024, the response and uptake of this campaign was not in high numbers in the Chobe District. He stated that out of a targeted accumulated of debt P3 834 011, only 480 applications were tendered against the same resulting in a combined 50% payment and write off debt reduction of only P801 899.00 leaving an unrealized debt amnesty balance of P3 032 122.00.
