NAMWATER has donated N$235 million to the central government for several national projects to address water shortages, but said this will come at a cost for consumers in the future.
Documents seen by show that the state directed the water parastatal to use its reserve money to, among others, give N$100 million to the City of Windhoek for water projects, while N$45 million of the remaining N$135 will be used to source water from Kombat.
NamWater spokesperson John Shigwedha told yesterday that the parastatal has not been forced into forking out N$235 million to state projects, amid concern that the parastatal is being dragged into a transaction that will eventually force them to increase tariffs in future.
He said the impact of the departure of N$235 million from their pockets is minimal since they still have enough money in their reserves to fund other capital projects.
“The only challenge, as it relates to the central areas of Namibia, is that these drought-related costs will have to be covered in future tariff increments,” he stated.
Shigwedha said the transfer to the state coffers was necessitated by the fact that this project, due to the President declaring a drought disaster and a ministerial committee on water projects also having been set up, had to be executed from the government side, hence the transfer to the state.
The permanent secretary in the ministry of finance Ericah Shafudah wrote a letter to NamWater’s chief executive Vaino Shivute on 27 July this year.
It’s in that letter that Shafudah reminded Shivute that there is a Cabinet decision which instructed NamWater to fund several projects aimed at addressing the national water crisis.
“These funds will be ring-fenced and implemented with oversight and overall accountability from the technical committee (Cabinet Committee on Water Supply),” she noted.
According to a letter written by Shafudah, since these are government projects, the funds will be transferred to the State Revenue Fund at the Bank of Namibia.
“The implementing agencies will be NamWater and the City of Windhoek, whilst the payments to contractors will be done by Treasury, upon presentation of invoices and certification of work done,” she explained.
A meeting at the ministry of finance between Shafudah and officials such as acting agriculture and water permanent secretary Sophia Kasheeta, deputy permanent secretary of state accounts Titus Ndove and other state officials took place on 12 July. No official from NamWater was present, even though they apologised for not attending.
It was at that meeting that it was discussed that an amount of N$45 million was required by the city of Windhoek to connect 12 boreholes with the existing water supply network in the city.
The city initially wanted an extra N$85 million to upgrade the Gammams water plant. The municipality plans to complete the drilling of seven boreholes by December.
“NamWater will have to acquire bigger pumps and install them at Kombat at a deeper level, and will require approximately N$45 million to implement the measure,” documents showed.
New Era reported this year that after September, the City of Windhoek and NamWater will only be able to supply about 50% of the required water demand from boreholes, the reclamation plant and the canal from the North.
NamWater also explained in that report that groundwater in the Windhoek aquifer should only be used as an emergency because once the water is over-extracted, it will take 15 years of normal rainfall to recharge.
The Namibian reported this year that about N$2 billion is needed immediately to enable underground water to be channelled to Windhoek, while N$24 billion is needed to supply water to the entire country through various ongoing and planned projects.
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