Mega city water supply system in Tanzania gets US$218 million funding

Mega city water supply system in Tanzania is set for expansion.The government of Tanzania has set aside a total of US$218 million for the projects in the town of Arusha.

This announcement was made over the weekend by Ms Ruth Koya, the Director General of Arusha Urban Water Supply and Sewerage Authority (Auwsa) when she took the recently-appointed Arusha District Commissioner Mrisho Gambo on a tour of the authority’s water supply plants.

She informed the District Commissioner that the expansion of the city water supply system in Tanzania will kick off in September this year and when completed, water supply is expected to increase to 200 million litres per day.

At the moment, Auwsa supplies about 60 million litres of water per day.

Leakeges

Additionally, Ms Koya said nearly half of the water supplied is lost as a result of leakages at the mains.

The District Commissioner appealed to the water authority to be more open and transparent in its operations and added that the government should be brought to knowledge of the major challenges that the authority face.

Other Auwsa officials said that another challenge why the authority does not meet the raising demands for water in the city is the high rise in population which shot up from around 250,000 less than a decade ago to over 750,000 .

Consequently, consumption of water consumption increased to 93,000 cubic metres per day from the initial 55,000 cubic metres.

Other hindrances encountered by the authority include uncontrolled borehole drilling.

Arusha’s main sources of the precious liquid are rivers and springs ,around Mount Meru plus underground water.