Gaborone City Mayor Haskins Nkaigwa on Monday, in a full Council meeting, said there are reports that residents of Gaborone and surrounding villages are drinking water that is unsafe for consumption.
“We cannot just continue to drink unclean water and claim ignorance; lives are being lost every day, who knows maybe it is due to consumption of unclean water,” he said.
Nkaigwa added that it is clear that centralizing both water and waste water has worsened all matters relating to water services in the City. He explained that Gaborone is a City in which days are spent without water and the response rate to queries is very weak ‘to say the least’.
Nkaigwa further said Gaborone is no longer habitable as there are always bad smells in most areas around the City.
“I cannot blame Water Utilities for such failures but put the blame on the Central Government for its decision to centralize water services,” said Nkaigwa, adding that the Government should reverse its decision to centralize water services.
On another issue, the Mayor talked about the delays in project completion and said in order to deal with such challenges, there is need to deal with the root cause.
Before the arrival of the Chinese companies, he said, local and South African companies were running the show adequately without compromising standards like nowadays. “Our own local supervising consultants have failed the Government although we continue to put the blame on these companies. How do people get paid for shoddy jobs under their supervision?” said Nkaigwa.
He said tough measures should be taken against such companies and consultants. Nkaigwa said the piece meal donations these Chinese companies give to the Presidential Housing Appeal programme should not trick us (Government).
He criticized the Government’s 2-year Internship programme, saying the programme is not yielding any fruit in terms of job creation.
Nkaigwa said the Internship Programme has rather increased the rate of unemployment in the country. He added that the companies have, therefore, taken advantage of the programme to acquire cheap labour which they later discard after the stipulated period of 2 years instead of giving them permanent employment.
“Such programmes are a clear sign that Government continues to fail Batswana in delivering programmes that will be sustainable,” said Nkaigwa.
