The Committee on Parastatal Bodies has embarked on a tour to visit parastatal facilities, especially those that were cited in the Auditor General’s report.
Although witnesses have appeared before the committee and they have been heard, the committee has taken time to visit the cited facilities to appreciate the challenges that exist there.
Today, the committee chair who is also Zambezi East Member of Parliament Honorable Brian Kambita et’al was in Kabwe where they are scheduled to visit some parastatal institutions of interest. Today they visited the major water supply and sanitation company, Lukanga water. Despite being a standalone company by existence, Lukanga water is jointly owned by the state. This subjects it to being checked and balanced by the necessary arms of government like the PAC for Parastatal Institutions.
There are primarily two main sources of water that supply to Kabwe and surrounding areas; Surface Water from Mulungushi Dam and the Well Fields.
A visit to Mulungushi dam revealed that the infrastructure is in a old dilapidated state that is nearly obsolete. Without much emphasis, it is too obvious that the infrastructure clearly needs urgent capital injection to revamp and restore to optimal operability and ultimately better the supply of the commodity as it supplies about 35% of the water that the province consumes.
The facility at the Well Fields, which supplies about 65% of the water to Kabwe is in a much better operational state. However it also still needs more capital injection to maintain and to bring modern equipment.
The major concern is that since the water is drawn from wells, it is pron to contamination due to encroachments in the area. This partly results from the fact that the area on which the facility sits is not protected by title deeds. The committee chair has hinted that there is need for interventions to ensure security of the property by titling it, thereby ensuring purity of the consumable commodity to the clients.
Meanwhile, the committee stays committed to ensuring that its plays its part in ensuring that supply of erratic, sporadic and unclean water remains a thing of the past.
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