Project to open 100 boreholes in Chibuto resumes

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Project to open 100 boreholes in Chibuto resumes

11:06 CAT | 05 Mar 2019

The project is being financed by the Islamic Development Bank and also covers the districts of Xai Xai and Bilene. File photo: Lusa

The project to open 100 water wells in the district of Chibuto, in the southern Mozambican province of Gaza has been resumed after an interruption due to the lack of equipment.

The project is being financed by the Islamic Development Bank and also covers the districts of Xai Xai and Bilene.

According to the director of District Service for Planning and Infrastructure, Pascoal Gemo, 38 holes have been drilled on the right bank of the Changane River. However, the contractor has concluded that the extracted water had high levels of salt and that drinking water could only be obtained at deeper levels of greater than 100 metres. As the company only had equipment capable of drilling to depths of 70 metres the project was suspended. However, the contractor has now brought in equipment and will open twenty wells by the end of June.

The high salt content in the soil was particularly prevalent in the administrative posts of Tchiamete, Alto Changane, and Changanine. Gemo explained that as an emergency measure, water will be trucked in for people living in Changanine and Alto Changane for sixty days during the dry season as residents would otherwise have to travel between ten and thirty kilometres to fetch water.

The district of Chibuto currently has 333 water wells, but 64 of these are currently broken and in need of repair. The management of the boreholes is organised through local committees and is funded through users each paying a nominal fee of twenty meticais (about 32 US cents) per month to cover maintenance. Gemo explained that management fo the wells is being transferred to the private sector, with three scheduled to be taken over this year. Currently, only eight water supply systems in Chibuto are under private management.

Work to improve the water supply in Chibuto is being supported by the Islamic Development Bank, the African Development Bank, and the government’s Maputo and Limpopo Corridors Value Chains Development Project (PROSUL).

Source: AIM