Enough water for 24 months in central area

Cabinet committee member on water supply Pedro Maritz said the central area of Namibia now has enough water to last at least for the next two years if residents continue to use it cautiously.

Maritz was speaking at State House, after a meeting with President Hage Geingob, Economic Advisor to the President John Steytler, a few members of parliament and his fellow committee members.

“The water situation is much more linear than what we had last year. With all the work that we have been doing up to now and together with rains that we had this past rainy season, we can now say that if we use our water judiciously, we will be getting through for the next two years at least,” he said.

Maritz indicated that the dams supplying water to the central area had received some inflow.

“We can say that they were filled up about 50% but we will still have to pump water from the underground sources in the Grootfontein area,” he added.

As a measure to address the water supply situation, a number of deep boreholes in the Windhoek area were sunk over the last year.

These will be used to draw water from the city's underground water reserves – the Windhoek aquifer.

“During a crucial time, we will now be able to take some of that water out of the Windhoek system,” Maritz said.

He explained that the underground reserves will have to be regarded as a big underground tank, which has to be filled up from time to time, especially during the good rainy years.

“We must remember that we cannot go on and use the water injudiciously, we still have to save some water.”

The Cabinet's committee on water supply is a technical committee that was appointed by Geingob last year to address the water supply situation in Windhoek and other towns in central Namibia.



NAMPA