Africa-Press – Botswana. The 200 new Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) units currently under construction in Pilane will require an additional 417 000 litres of water every day.
This was said by Assistant Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Mr Keoagile Atamelang, on behalf of the Minister of Water and Human Settlement in response to a parliamentary question recently.
Mr Atamelang acknowledged the existing water supply challenges in the Mochudi cluster, which encompassed Mochudi, Morwa, Pilane, Bokaa and Rasesa, and assured Parliament that measures were in place to prevent the new BHC project from exacerbating the crisis.
“The ministry is aware of the water supply challenges and has put in place short-term and long-term plans to ensure that water shortage is not exacerbated,” he said.
He added that in the short term, the Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) had resorted to water bowsing to service high-lying areas in Morwa, Pilane, Bokaa and Rasesa North where infrastructure was currently limited.
Furthermore, he said residents in Rasesa were facing daily water rationing, adding that supply in the village was managed, with water available from 5am to 12 midnight daily, as the corporation struggled to balance demand across the cluster.
As a long-term plan, he said government was looking toward the National Development Plan 12 (NDP 12) for a major Network Rehabilitation and Extension Project, with an addition of the construction of a proposed 3.5Mega Litres concrete tank under the Kgatleng Land Servicing Project.
Kgatleng West MP, Dr Unity Dow had asked the minister to state the number of extra litres of water that would be required to service the additional 200 BHC houses currently being constructed in Kgatleng District and the plans to ensure that the current water shortage in the Morwa, Pilane and Rasesa area was not exacerbated.
