Amarika without water again

Continual breakdowns of the N$200 million Amarika desalination plant force community members to draw water from dangerous wells where a six-year-old boy drowned in August. The Omusati regional councillor for Otamanzi Constituency, Johannes Iiyambo, told Namibian Sun that due to lack of communication, Amarika has been without drinking water for the past two weeks after the desalination plant broke down again. “The village headman, Salom Hamutenya, just called me yesterday to inform me that the desalination plant has not been working for the past two weeks,” he said. “We stopped providing them with water in August when their water facilities were fixed. Currently, the regional council tanker is also not functioning and we cannot take water from there for now.” Iiyambo said the headman had to go to the clinic to call him because there is no cellphone network coverage in the area. The community are afraid of drawing water from their wells following the drowning of six-year-old Martin Andiyatuye Iipinge in a seven-metre-deep well. In 2006, the German/Namibian research project CuveWaters, through Integrated Water Resources Management and with funds from the German education and research ministry (BMBF), installed two solar-powered desalination plants at Amarika and Akutsima for N$200 million. The system is capable of producing 3.3 cubic metres of clean drinking water daily, but came to a halt immediately after it was handed over to the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry in 2010. Gundula Perry from the Germany embassy told Namibian Sun earlier that in 2006 CuveWaters started a ten-year project with N$200 million funding from the BMBF. “Monitoring of the plants was conducted by the engineering partners. In November 2013, the plants were officially handed over to MAWF. In March/April and November 2015, the MAWF and CuveWaters agreed on final optimisation and maintenance works. “As a result the plants were fully functional with the exception of one at Akutsima but could be repaired without specialised spare parts. The CuveWaters project finished at the end of 2015. Since 2010, training was an integral part of the project,” Perry said. When Namibian Sun visited the area in July, local people said the plant only supplied water for three months before breaking down. According to the sources, the plant stood idle until it was repaired in 2015, after which it pumped water for just one month and broke down again. “Those who were trained were only shown how to operate the system, but not the technical and electronic aspects of the system. They cannot detect what is wrong if the system stops operating,” said a community member. Perry said almost all the spare parts needed to repair the system can be obtained in Namibia and additional spare parts are kept on site. She added that the Namibian service providers have the expertise to fix even major problems. “Since the plant started operating again, Rural Water Supply is charging us a lot of money and many people here cannot afford water any more, that is why people are still taking risks to get water from wells,” Amutenya said. ILENI NANDJATO

Amarika without water again

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-02

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Amarika without water again

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Namibian Sun 2025-05-02

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