Govt targets 80, 000 in potable water supply project
Principal Water Engineer in the Ministry of Water and Sanitation, John Chingawale, has disclosed that about 80, 000 people under the Mpira-Balaka water supply system will benefit from the Malawi Resilience and Disaster Risk Management Project ( MRDRMP) that government is implementing with financing from the World Bank.
Speaking at a media Interface meeting in Blantyre, Chingawale said among other key components of the MRDRMP project, the government is rehabilitating and augmenting critical water supply infrastructures in order to enhance easy access to portable water supply among the communities in the country.
Chingawale said the project is a response to a number of droughts that the country faced over the past years in order to build resilience among the communities.
“Currently, we have managed to rehabilitate a number of water supply systems in Nsanje, Blantyre, Thyolo and Mulanje districts where communities are enjoying easy access to portable water supply despite facing droughts,” said Chingawale.
He said:” Government has put in place a number of interventions under the current project and we are targeting 11 schemes in Dedza, Machinga, Balaka, Neno, Zomba, Ntcheu, Mulanje, Thyolo, Mzimba and Nsanje.
Chingawale added that under the Mpira-Balaka water supply system government will augment and rehabilitate the water supply with 6 high yielding boreholes with a total of 65 litres per second to serve about 80,000 people from Ntcheu, Balaka, Neno and some parts of Mangochi district.
Technical Team Member of the MRDRMP, Sydney Kamtukule, said despite facing Cyclone challenges, the government is confident of completing all the interventions under the project.
Kamtukule said the government has put in place strategies to fast track the implementation of the project by enhancing supervision and restricted tendering to ensure that small works are implemented fast among contractors.
The Malawi Resilience and Disaster Risk Management MRDRMP was designed to address both drought and flood emergencies.
