EWSA rations water to keep taps flowing in festive season

The Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA) has began a week-long water rationing exercise in the City of Kigali, which officials say is aimed at ensuring that most households get access to water during the festive season.The rationing, according to a schedule, took effect yesterday and will see some areas within the city and its surroundings going without water for a day.Speaking to The New Times yesterday, James Sano, the EWSA deputy director-general in charge of water and sanitation, said the decision was arrived at after assessing the overriding demand by city dwellers, which he said has overstretched the production capacity of the utility.Currently, the company produces 70,000 cubic metres of water for supply in the City of Kigali. Sano said this capacity is but short of city demand by 50,000 cubic metres.The schedule, which was posted on the institution’s web site, lists suburbs in Kigali and surrounding areas and the days that they will go without water.“The city has developed tremendously within a short time in times of size and population because of the ongoing development. There has also been an increase in the consumption per capita,” Sano said.“The types of houses that are being built now are more consuming than those there were before but the production is yet to catch up with the demand,” he added.Most-affected areasThe areas that are prone to the interruptions are those at the far end of the utility company’s distribution network as well as those around hilly areas.However, Sano said the rationing should not be experienced in an area for more than two days and in the event such occurs, customers should reach the company through q hotline.“We have 24-hour rapid intervention technical teams who will work throughout the festive season for maintenance purpose, so in case of network problems to respond to emergencies,” the EWSA water chief said.Some city dwellers, who spoke to The New Times, said there are times when their taps stay dry for a week.Sandrine Umurungi, who operates a stall in Kimironko Market, said she is used to frequent prolonged water interruptions in Kabeza where she lives.Umurungi said the shortages in Kabeza at times last for three to four days and that last month, the area had no water for a whole week.“In Kabeza and parts of Kanombe, it is common to have water shortages for days,” she said.“If the recent rationing schedule released is anything to go by, it is a little reassuring for residents of some of these areas that they will get water supply before their stock runs out. Having water five days a week supply is way better than before when the supply was random.”Other city dwellers said they are bracing for the period by storing and making use of water harvested from the rain as the water on sale during rationing period from vendors is not reliable.Emily Ingabire, who runs a food shop in Kimironko, cited the water interruptions as untimely being the festive period and with the rainy season on.“We will have to store water and harvest rain water though it cannot last for long. I hope EWSA will live up to their promise that the rationing will not last more than two consecutive days,” Ingabire said.EWSA has been under intense criticism from the general public for frequent water shortages over the last two months, which Sano said was as a result of a series of unexpected challenges.“For the first time, unexpected heavy rain caused the flooding of pumping stations in Rwamagana, Mburabuturo and Byimana, paralysing our activities. There was also stoppage at the Kimisagara treatment plant because of high turbid water from Yanze River,” Sano said.To add to the company’s woes, the persistent load-shedding at their installations resulted into reduced hours of production from the usual 24 to 16.“The load-shedding between October and December 20, which was due to planned maintenance of the national grid, reduced our working hours and, thus slowed us down,” he added.EWSA seeks last solutionBut even after getting past the recent challenges, the utility company still faces huge obstacles such as the outdated network—more than 40 years old—which is not adequately sized to transport water to the different neighbourhoods.According to the officials, these need urgent major rehabilitation, upgrading, enforcement and extension to reach to new suburbs like Rebero, Kinyinya, Runda, Kagarama, among others.“We have internally agreed with electricity department not to tamper with electricity supply at our water installations as part of the solution for our short term challenges,” Sano said.The EWSA water chief said as a long-term solution, they have an engineering procurement and construction and public private partnership procurements going on for water projects in Kanzenze and Mutobo with tendering process to roll off on January 15.He said this would increase water production capacity by 140,000 cubic metres to address the main challenge of inadequate water supplied.

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EWSA rations water to keep taps flowing in festive season