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Thupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
The construction of a new water treatment plant that seeks to end Beitbridge’s perennial water woes is nearing completion with only a few civil works needing minimal attention, an official has said.Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) chief engineer Peter Makwarimba said in an interview today that civil works were 80 percent complete.
He said so far Government has spent $13million on the bulk of civil works.
The programme started in 2011 and was set for completion in two years, but has been delayed due to inadequate funding.
“We have covered a lot of ground and we are very hopeful that with adequate funding the project will be complete before the end of the year. The new treatment plant has a pumping capacity of 2160 cubic metres per hour and the capacity of all the reservoirs is 2160 cubic metres. The project should have taken two years to complete if availability of funds had not been interrupted. “Financial constraints, for example, the contractor at the moment is on a go slow because of lack of payment,” he said.
It is understood that the town needs at least 15 000 cubic metres of water per hour but Zinwa is pumping only 3000 cubic metres.
Upon completion the water treatment plant is expected t o augment water supplies to the town with an estimated population of 40 000 people and an additional 10 000 transit population per day.
The town’s current water treatment plant has a capacity to pump only 6 000 cubic metres of water per hour.
Zinwa pumps water from the Limpopo River into its two storage dams, but due to constant break down of its main pumping system and inadequate filters, the water utility relied on one dam, which feeds into the reservoirs.
Beitbridge town’s water and sewer reticulation system relatively improved between 2009 and 2011 following the repair of the current infrastructure by the World Bank under the Beitbridge Emergency Water Supply and Sanitation programme.
The bank spent $2, 65 million as an immediate response to the cholera outbreak which swept across the country in 2008.
Meanwhile, the construction of the 63km Zhovhe Beitbridge water canal which seeks to promote irrigation farming and address the town’s water challenges has taken eternity to take off ground due to acute funds shortages.
The Government needs to raise $23 million for the project.
Online Reporter