Last week the United States Embassy in Gaborone released a public statement casting doubts on the safety of the city’s water for drinking purposes.
It is a thorough alert to members of the Embassy staff and it is only proper that we allow the communication to speak for itself.
“Earlier today, the Embassy received water test results from samples taken from various Mission residences last Thursday. Such testing is performed routinely by the Embassy to ensure our water supply is safe. These samples indicate that unsafe levels of biological contaminants are present in Gaborone water supply in five different neighbourhoods. These contaminants render the water supply non-potable. Based on the wide area tested, we are confident the contamination is not isolated to a single part of the city.┬á We have notified the water Utilities Corporation and will stay in close contact with them as they investigate and try to remedy the situation.
Until further notice, Embassy Gaborone is issuing a Boiled Water Advisory for the personnel in the Gaborone area. We recommend that you boil all water intended for consumption…. You can still bath or wash your hands with water from the tap. The danger is in drinking it. You should be aware that water filters are not a substitute for boiling your water. Boiling is the only proven method for killing water borne bacteria. … We will continue to test the local water supply water on a more frequent basis until it is once again safe to drink. In the meantime we are discussing with Washington various long-term solutions for providing safe, drinking water in Gaborone.”
Once again this is a comprehensive public health alert from the Embassy of the United States of America in Gaborone. It is concise, explicit and to the point.
The only other thing we can ask from the Americans is to widen their tests, to include those areas even where their staff may not be residing. And to please share with Batswana their findings on a continuous and ongoing basis!
The alert is all the more damning, not least because it is a dossier coming from a long time ally of the people of Botswana.
There certainly can be no ulterior motives for the United States to have come up with this damning conclusion, and worse to have made it public.
What we shall never know for certain is just for how long the Embassy would have tried to engage the agencies of the Government of Botswana behind closed doors.
There is a possibility that the United States Embassy would first have shared with Government of Botswana at various levels to look into this issue before going public.
Another possibility is that the Americans only went public when they felt either cold-shouldered or unable to get worthwhile results from their Botswana counterparts.
Whatever the case, the statement from the United States Embassy will go a long way in exposing for they are the pretences that have long wrapped Botswana’s much vaunted international image.
While we strongly contend that this could not have been the intention of the Embassy, but coming at a time when the country is witnessing the worst electricity shortage since independence, coming at a time when the nation’s roads are in a state of disrepair, at a time when the country is besieged by an unprecedented number of unfinished public projects, this could not have come at a worse time for Botswana.
The country’s ratings are no doubt going to feel a knock.
The United States government has over the last few years spent a fortune financing Botswana’s public health sector. And The Embassy is rightly dismayed to see a public health risk on what could by all accounts be an avoidable oversight on the part of a state owned parastatal like Water Utilities Corporations.
The assessment from the United States Embassy is that unless the public is made aware of the dangers posed, the damage could very easily become irreparable. And in that assessment the United States is wholly correct.
Without addressing concerns as raised by the Embassy, Water Utilities on their part issued a boilerplate response, effectively rubbishing the assertions by the American Embassy.
“The Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) is aware of reports alleging that the Gaborone water supply is unsafe to drink and advising the public to boil the water before drinking.
The Corporation tests its water supply at different points in the distribution system regularly and in response to these allegations which reached the Corporation on the 14th of February 2013, WUC immediately carried out extra tests on its water supply in Gaborone and the results indicate that the water supply is safe to drink. The Corporation therefore reassures the public that its water supply in Gaborone and nationwide is safe to drink, even without prior boiling.
It should be noted that the reports in question quote results of tests done in particular residencies on the 6th of February 2013. The Corporation has received the queries from these residencies and is working to get to the root cause of such water quality indications in the particular residencies.”
 We view the response and behavior by Water Utilities Corporation as deplorable, reprehensible and unpardonable.
There is simply no way the unsafe water could only be confined to residences of the American Embassy staff in Gaborone as the WUC response seems to imply.
WUC says water is safe to drink. But from past experience, we find it very difficult to take their word for it.
The cleanliness of water aside, the Corporation is still to fully account for the deaths of employees who died while working in Gaborone Dam towards the end of last year.
Many questions on safety have been raised yet there has been no public statement on the part of WUC management, to at least make an attempt at allaying public concerns that steps were being taken to make the tragedy that struck last year does not happen again.
Because in this country only non-Botswana government agencies like the United States Embassy can ever have the resources, the wherewithal and the guts to come up with a thorough and so convincing processes as that put by the United States Embassy, the result has been that WUC has always gotten away with murder, often literally.
We call on the minister responsible for Water to force WUC management to do retests through an independent panel of experts who are not aligned to Botswana government.
The alert by the United States should be taken seriously. In fact by going public on such a matter, the first of its kind, the American Embassy is showing signs of just how distressed they are with a friend that is showing many signs of going astray.
