Africa-Press – Angola. The administrator of the Institute for the Management of Assets and State Participation (IGAPE), Raimundo Santa Rosa, considered, this Friday, the situation of the Provincial Water and Sanitation Company of Benguela, given the deficit in the distribution capacity compared to to current demand.
The head of IGAPE was speaking to journalists at the end of a visit to verify the state of operation of the Water Treatment Station (ETA) of Luongo, in the municipality of Catumbela, on the last day of the tour to the province of Benguela, to verify the reality of the public business sector.
After visiting the Port of Lobito, the Benguela Railway (CFB) and the Hotel Infotur, an asset that has already been taken over by private management, the administrator of IGAPE and the delegation accompanying him X-rayed this Friday the current status of the Provincial Company of Águas de Benguela, which results from the merger of related companies from Benguela and Lobito.
The visit, which had the other objective of bringing the technical teams from IGAPE and Águas de Benguela closer together, allowed the Institute for the Management of Assets and State Shareholdings to make a diagnosis of the constraints faced by the Water Company, as well as point out solutions.
According to Raimundo Santa Rosa, the situation is critical in that the Provincial Water and Sanitation Company of Benguela serves the entire province, but is struggling with a “glaring deficit” in the capacity to capture, produce and distribute water in the face of demand. that currently exists.
In the face of this worrying scenario, the person in charge was peremptory in stating that there is every need for the company to quadruple its current capacity, to serve the level of demand that is growing both in the four cities on the coast, as well as in the interior municipalities and communes.
In addition, the IGAPE administrator said he had identified another problem, which, deep down, is already transversal to all water and sanitation companies in the country, which is the “discrepancy” between water production and its distribution and then billing.
“It is a problem that, later, we will have to see at a more structural level, which is the lack of a payment culture because there are population segments that are not in a position to pay”, he said, defending that it is necessary to design solutions to reverse this situation.
Raimundo Santa Rosa made it clear that the main constraints at the level of the Water and Sanitation Company of Benguela are related to the poor condition of essential equipment for capturing, producing and distributing water.
As an example, he said that, in the catchment segment, there were some problems in pumping water destined for the Treatment Station, in Luhongo, because the pumps are already old, as they have already exceeded their useful life.
As a consequence, he points to the high maintenance costs of this equipment, which is practically “obsolete”, a situation that gets worse in the rainy season due to the high level of turbidity that the water presents.
Even so, he recognizes that the company’s management has made a “titanic effort” in order to maintain this equipment.
He says that the fact that the costs that the company has had are very high is worrying, not least because, as he revealed, in a normal phase they would be spending close to 30 million kwanzas / month to treat the water and today they are spending 90 million .
Investments are urgent
Faced with the scenario verified in loco, the administrator of IGAPE admits that it is urgent to make investments to increase the production and capture capacity in Benguela, despite acknowledging that this intervention is, at least for the time being, beyond the company’s reach.
Raimundo Santa Rosa understands that these investments cannot be postponed and must also take into account the need to reduce the turbidity of the water collected from the Catumbela River, through the installation of collection tanks, in order to reduce the company’s operating costs.
It is in this context that it reveals that, so far, none of the nine planned tanks has been installed, as the projects have not yet been implemented, although this is part of the Executive’s agenda for the near future.
“There are already projects and we think that, with this visit and others that will follow, it will be easier (to intervene), through coordination with the Provincial Government of Benguela”, he added.
He also took the opportunity to underline that the motto of the President of the Republic, João Lourenço, of “working harder and communicating better” gives encouragement to the teams from IGAPE, the Water Company and the Provincial Government, in the search for solutions to meet the needs of the population in terms of water supply.
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