WINDHOEK: The City of Windhoek (CoW) says it is busy replacing the water distribution network in Groot Aub in order to start installing individual and community prepaid water meters.

This was confirmed by CoW spokesperson Lydia Amutenya in an interview with Nampa on Wednesday.

‘After that CoW will construct a bigger reservoir,’ she added.

This follows a request by Groot Aub community leader Demetrio Beukes, to construct additional water reservoirs as the existing one, he says was initially constructed to cater for less than 10 000 people. He added that the settlement’s growing population is making it difficult to have sufficient water for every household in the settlement.

‘The biggest challenge we have is that when the reservoir was made it was made for 6 000 to 10 000 people. With the influx of people our population is increasing. That small reservoir must now give 24 000 people water and there will always be a shortage,’ Beukes told Nampa.

Amutenya confirmed that approximately 24 000 people are curren
tly living in Groot Aub, but explained that Groot Aub’s water shortages are not linked to the reservoir’s size.

‘It is not the reservoir that is too small to cater to more people, but the total safe yield (abstraction from existing boreholes) that is limited to provide water to 10 000 people. We can only provide a maximum of 60m3 per hour from existing boreholes,’ Amutenya said.

CoW currently has six existing boreholes in Groot Aub, Amutenya said. The City recently announced that they successfully drilled a 200-metre borehole in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Land Reform. Seven additional boreholes will be drilled, CoW announced, adding that this will put an end to the settlement’s water shortages.

‘What needs to happen is after they are done drilling these new boreholes they need to build another reservoir and strategically put up tanks in each location so that those tanks can provide water for each location,’ Beukes told Nampa.

Groot Aub’s administration was officially taken ove
r by the City of Windhoek in 2017.

Source: The Namibia Press Agency