Pacific Limited rehabilitates over 4,000 boreholes nationwide in partnership with MPs
Pacific Limited has reached out to nationwide communities in partnership with Members of Parliament in which it has rehabilitated non-functional 5,000 boreholes as part of the company’s major corporate social responsibility (CSR).
The company’s founder Faizal Aboo said they are carrying out the borehole rehabilitation program in all the constituencies as one way of complementing government’s efforts in providing safe and clean water to the citizenry.
Aboo explained that the MP’s role in the initiative is to identify non-functional boreholes in their constituencies where institutes 2 teams which work in two different communities within a month.
“Statistics from National Statistical Office (NSO) indicates that a large proportion of our population that live in rural areas don’t have tap water and their main source of drinking water comes from boreholes,” Aboo said.
“Through our own own assessment, in partnership with the MPs, shows that they are more 20,000 boreholes in the country that are not functioning.
“We felt that it is an expensive exercise to build a new borehole altogether as thus not be able to provide more. The government is also reaching out to rural communities to provide safe and clean water but it needs the support of the other stakeholders like ourselves.”
Aboo added that the company is committed in maintaining all the 20,000 non-functional boreholes so that Malawians should have easy access to clean and safe water.
He said the borehole program will help people to be productive as they don’t have to walk as far as 5km for some to draw water.
“One borehole easily caters for over 500 folks of a village of 100 households. Since they will not have to walk far to fetch water they will have more time to be productive as families,” Aboo said.
One of the constituents in Ntcheu North East, Mary Bandawe applauded the borehole rehabilitation program, saying it will help them access portable water than was some 6 years back.
Bandawe said they used to rely on water drawn from a surrounding river where their livestock’s also directly quenches their thirst from, which was a risk of contracting waterborne diseases.
“For the past 6 years, life has been tough in our area. We have been using water from a river that surrounds the area,”
“As a result, we have been recording more cases on waterborne diseases,” Bandawe said.
In her remarks, Speaker of Parliament Catherine Gotani Hara said the initiative is saving a lot of lives and making it easy for people to access clean and safe water.
Gotani Hara believes the challenging part government has had over the years is maintaining non-functional boreholes than continuing on drilling new ones which became expensive.
“What we have been lacking is the initiative to repair and train communities on borehole management,” she said.
“The coming in of Pacific Limited will help in saving resources that have been allocated to borehole project.
The borehole rehabilitation project started in 2015 and to date constituencies that benefited include Lilongwe North East, Zomba Ntonya, Kasungu East, Dowa Central, Salima Central, Nkhotakota North, Kasungu North North and Mzimba North East.
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