Parliamentary Committee on Commissions’s Statutory Corporations and State Enterprises on Wednesday toured the Airwing Ground Water Project Lilongwe Water Board (LWB) is implementing.
Briefing the committee during the tour, LWB chief executive officer Alfonso Chikuni said the K984 million project seeks to improve current water supply sources with an estimated 2.5 million litres per day.
“The project is targeting to benefit 25 000 people residing in areas such as Njewa, Area 46, Natural Resources College, Mtandire, Likuni and Area 47 once completed.
“This means the current supply from Mtunthama tank will be allocated to other consumers, thereby increasing water supply,” he said.
Chikuni also told the committee that, among other things, the project will include drilling and equipping 16 boreholes and associated construction works to cost about K55 million, construction of a 560 metres ground concrete water supply tank worth about K81 million and a surface pump house.
Briefing journalists after the tour, committee chairperson Lilian Patel said they were impressed with the project considering the water challenges being experienced in Lilongwe.
With the back-to-back drought in the past two years, LWB’s two dams—Kamuzu Dam I and Kamuzu Dam II—did not fill up to the required capacity, forcing the board to ration water since 2016.
The water levels in the dams is dwindling due to siltation following environmental degradation in the Dzalanyama Catchment Area, according to Chikuni.
