Africa-Press – Mozambique. Over 9,000 residents of the administrative post of Dacata, in the central Mozambican province of Manica, will enjoy access to clean drinking water following the inauguration on Thursday by President Filipe Nyusi of a new water supply system.
The project, budgeted at 31.8 million meticais (about 501,000 US dollars, at the current exchange rate), is part of the presidential initiative known as “Water for Life” (PRAVIDA).
“This is an important landmark towards attaining the goals enshrined in the Government Five Year Programme for 2020/24, to boost the water supply coverage in the rural areas from the current 62 per cent of the population to 80 per cent,” Nyusi said.
The efforts underway to ensure access to drinking water, Nyusi added, have borne encouraging results. In 1975, the year of Mozambican independence, national coverage stood at six per cent, but hard and persistent work pushed the coverage rate up to 74 per cent by 2020.
“To fast track our response to water shortage, we drew up the Water for Life programme, under which we built water reservoirs and other sources”, said the President
Under PRAVIDA, he added, 60 water supply systems and 80 water sources and reservoirs were installed. In Manica, systems were built in five districts, 54 boreholes were drilled and 1,677 new home connections were made.
The encouraging success of the programme to date, Nyusi said, has pushed the government to extend PRAVIDA to a second phase to be implemented up to 2024.
“Our vision is to attain universal water supply and sanitation coverage in line with the United Nations’ Agenda 20/30 that we have signed”, he said. “Here in Manica, through PRAVIDA-II, we shall build and ensure maintenance of a further eight systems and 56 new boreholes that will secure water supply to an additional 245,000 people”.
The inspector of the Dacata system, Virgilio Munguambe, said in the initial phase it will cover about 3,000 consumers. In the coming years, this number will increase to reach nearly 9,000 consumers. The system depends on electricity from the national grid as well as solar panels.
