Gambia’s water and electricity supplier, NAWEC said a rupture at its Brikama Treatment Plant water transmission pipe linking to major parts of the greater Banjul area is the cause of the current water shortage in the country.
The burst affects the main transmission pipes linking Jambang Jelly to Brusubi and the other pipe heading to Farato to Cow Junction in Latrikunda.
Over the past few days, the country is experiencing one of the worst moments in water and electricity crisis in the country.
Speaking to journalists during a tour of the site in Brikama, John Camara, the company’s director of water and sewage services said the burst occurred last Friday, 2nd May, 2017 and they repaired it but but unfortunately, additional work is still required on the pipe going towards Brusubi.
“The pipe heading to Cow Junction is now working and is in operation since Monday. Right now, work is ongoing and in an advance stage for the pipe heading to Brusubi. We are at the finishing stage” he explained.
According to Camara, despite the problem, they have contingency measures to address the situation in the short term. He said for the past two days, they trying to provide water manually because all their tanks are automatic.
“Every day in the morning, afternoon and night, we go round and fill this tanks that helps us to distribute water to greater number of the community in the Greater Banjul Area. We are now manually filling our tanks for people to get water. Before, people get 24 hours water supply but now they get 8 to 9 hours and I hope they will bear with us because it is just short period of time” he said.
No contaminated water
Camara used the opportunity to refute rumors of contaminated water been distributed by NAWEC.
He said: “The issue is that there is burst and lot of sand gets into the pipe. But before we start running the system, we flush it out but inevitably, we do have few of the sand passing through the system and getting into people’s home. The reason why we have risk dual chlorine is that in the event that we have situations like this and the water is contaminated, the chlorine will fight the bacteria to make sure the water is safe for drinking. It’s well chlorinated. Generally, we have addressed that” he explained.
Camara advised the people to always open their taps for free flow of water in few minutes before using the water.
