The Minister of Public Works, Housing and Water Resources, Carlos Mesquita, today (6.12) handed over a rehabilitated water supply system to the population of the Machipanda administrative post in Manica province.

The system is budgeted at around 49 million meticais, with the capacity to supply around 13,000 people, and will benefit 3,700 people.

It comprises a catchment point, where four boreholes have been built, a distribution center with a reservoir with a capacity of 305 cubic meters, two pipelines about two kilometers long.

It also has a distribution network of around 12 kilometers in length, with 236 household connections having been made and eight public fountains having been built.

During the handover ceremony, Carlos Mesquita said he was aware that the rehabilitation of the system at that administrative post was a historic milestone, bearing in mind that Machipanda - as an important Beira-Machipanda economic and social development corridor, linking Zimbabwe to the Port of Beira - has always faced serious problems of lack of water for human consumption and hygiene.

"The population used dispersed sources, i.e. boreholes with hand pumps, and even then they had to travel great distances to access water, a situation that had prevailed since the early days of national independence," he said.

The financing of this water supply system, according to Carlos Mesquita, had the "positive" difference of including the construction of sanitary infrastructures at the headquarters of the Machipanda administrative post, which "we have no doubt will make a big difference in improving the quality of life and well-being of the local population, border users and, perhaps, in improving public health conditions at local level".

In terms of sanitation infrastructure, three sanitary blocks were built: a public block, located next to National Road No. 6, to benefit the local population and border users, a block at the local market and a block at the health center.

As a whole, the project is the result of a joint effort by the Mozambican government and the Cooperation and Development Partners, as part of the Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Program (CRIDF), a regional cross-border program aligned with the objectives of the SADC, which covers 14 countries in southern Africa, according to the minister.