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Mthabisi Tshuma, Chronicle Correspondent
THE District Development Fund (DDF) yesterday started drilling boreholes in Matabeleland South province with Bulilima West constituency benefiting first.
This comes as the Government mandated DDF to drill at least four boreholes in every constituency in order to ease water shortages countrywide.
In a telephone interview, Matabeleland South DDF provincial coordinator, Mr Moment Malandu, said they will drill 60 boreholes in the province. “We are set to drill 60 boreholes in the province with each of the province’s 13 constituencies set to get 4 to 5 boreholes each.
“Yesterday we started to drill in Bulilima and the constituency is set to get about 8 boreholes because we had another pending batch we were supposed to drill sometime back,” said Mr Malandu.
In September, Treasury released $46 million to the DDF to help drill 600 boreholes countrywide that will provide clean water for consumption and irrigation, especially in the country’s eight rural provinces.
Mr Malandu said if their drilling equipment is not affected by any breakdowns, they are expecting to have covered the whole province in the next four months.
“Normally it takes two days to drill a borehole and if all goes well we are expecting to have drilled the 60 boreholes in 120 days,” he said.
Mr Malandu, who is also the Matabeleland South Rural Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) chairperson said the water situation in the province is dire. “The situation is currently very, very bad as most dams had dried up before the rains started raining in the past weeks. The water table was very low affecting the drilling of borehole projects in most parts of the province,” said Mr Mahlangu.
Bulilima West MP Cde Dingumuzi Phuthi confirmed that the drilling of boreholes in his constituency had started. — @mthabisi_mthire.
Online Reporter