Day 4 - Part 1: Batoka Water Works

Day 4 – Part 1: Batoka Water Works

Today was a day of two halves. In the morning we visited a water works in Batoka run by Southern Water and Sewerage Company (SWASCO) along with a few households supplied by the works and in the afternoon we visited a post intervention community called Silimi.

Batoka is a small town in the southern province of Zambia and as of 2005/06 it had a population of 2,500 which is now ever increasing (they had no official records to confirm the current population). On arrival in Batoka we were introduced to Mr Ndilla who is the Technical Manager for SWASCO. He introduced to his team and then gave us an insight into the Batoka treatment process. The water works uses a very simple treatment process comprising of a 10m3 elevated plastic water tank (to deliver adequate water pressure in order to feed the community), 2 electric boreholes and pumped Calcium Hypochlorite dosing. They dose from 1 to 7 parts per million as it’s seen as not enough f it drops below 0.6 ppm. Proportionate dosing is used based on the water flow and pumping rate. One batch of Calcium Hypochlorite is mixed per day and they can get through 45kg of dry chlorine in 3 to 4 days. The water network consists of 3km’s of 40 year old 2” Galvanised Iron (GI) pipe and Mr Ndilla would like to upgrade this to 4 to 5km’s of 3” UPVC pipe given adequate funds. The supply at Batoka was originally from Boreholes.

Batoka water tank and dosing pump house

We went on to ask about the supply and how many householders have a water supply at their house. Mr Ndilla advised that a few households have this but a lot of the community get water from the communal water points. We then asked about how much the community pays for their water and he advised that on average it is 34,000 kwacha per month which is around £4.50. There are different price structures, some householders are on fixed tariffs and others are metered. It’s 2,000 kwacha per m3 if they are on a metered tariff (roughly £0.25). Mr Ndilla also advised that householders who consume over a certain amount will pay more. If customers do not pay then their water supply is cut off.

We asked about the water quality and what the customers think of the taste if they had previously been used to untreated water. Some of the community do object to the taste of the chlorinated water but SWASCO are still trying to achieve the optimal dose so this will improve over time. Water sampling is done twice a month in Batoka but it’s done daily in some of the larger towns in the area.

The old water tank and one of the existing boreholes

Mr Ndilla went on to tell us more about SWASCO. Each province has a water utility and SWASCO is the utility for the whole of the Southern Province. They have 300 employees in Southern Water and 2 are based at Batoka. SWASCO has 40,000 customer accounts with 6 to 7 inhabitants per household, so roughly 250,000 customers. The vision for SWASCO is to provide 24/7 water supply and metering for all. He advised that this would be a particular challenge for the more rural settlements and he didn’t think these communities would have a water supply delivered by SWASCO in the near future as it would be too expensive. SWASCO receives very little government funding as this is only given in exceptional cases. The projects are cross subsidised by water utilities in towns which are making a profit.

Batoka does not have a sewerage network and communities still use pit latrines. Sewage disposal is paid for on the customer water bills.

It was great getting the chance to see how SWASCO are delivering water services to their customers and get the chance to ask them about the vision of their company. They have a huge challenge on their hands to deliver water for all but it was great to hear that this was their target.