BWB explains water shortage

Blantyre Water Board (BWB) has attributed the recent intermittent water supply in the commercial city to a fault on one of its major pumps at Chileka Pumping Station.

The water shortage comes as the country is grappling with a cholera outbreak which has so far infected 668 people and claimed 26 lives in Blantyre alone.

Briefing the media after touring the station on Monday, BWB director of technical services Mavuto Chiipanthenga said initially, they had no idea what was causing the problem.

“We instituted an investigation and found out that the motor was just running, but the pump was not functioning,” he said.

Chiipanthenga further bemoaned vandalism as one of its major challenges.

He said a pipe was vandalised at Mkwaila Village in Mulanje, making it impossible for the board to supply its customers with water from its Mulanje-Likhubula Water System which supplies 10 000 cubic meters of water to Blantyre City a day.

In a separate interview, a Chilobwe resident Zainabuh Duwa urged BWB to quickly address the challenge as they have not had running water for close to two weeks.

“We walk long distances to source water for drinking. In Chilobwe, some people are selling water tapped from Soche Mountain. We are afraid such water is not safe for consumption,” she said.

To help fight the cholera outbreak, in September BWB suspended all deductions for settlement of arrears by water kiosks on the prepaid metering system to ensure that all water kiosks in Blantyre are operational.

The decision followed reports that some water kiosks were not operational because their Water Users Associations were failing to buy water tokens due to repayment of arrears upon a purchase.