Day 4, Thursday 16th February 2012

Today was a great day for water geeks such as myself (and my fellow WaterAid supporters) as today we visited Southern Water and Sewerage Company (nothing to do with the Southern Water we know)!

The Company was formed in 1999 after the Government decided to privatise the small Local Authority run water supply systems.

Since then Southern Water and Sewerage Company has been building on what was originally constructed.

WaterAid has been supporting a number of the water company's projects as a lack of money makes it hard to improve and enter new areas.

We visited the small town of Batoka which has a population of 2,500. It was about five years ago when Southern Water and Sewerage Company began supplying the town.

For fellow geeks out there the town has 3km of 2-inch iron pipework which serves two thirds of the population. The supply comes from a borehole which is 45 metres deep.

The water is pumped to a pump house where Chlorine is added, it is then pumped to a water tower before it goes out into the community.

The water tower and pump house in Batoka - tiny compared to UK standards

As you can imagine, that borehole is not adequate enough to supply that population 24/7. As a result water is rationed to only a few hours a day and pressure is poor, especially for those further away from the Southern Water and Sewerage Company site.

The Company estimates 4-5km of new pipework is required and most of the old pipework needs to be replaced.

What was most interesting was their thoughts on compulsory water metering and billing.

Metering: they are introducing compulsory metering like water companies in England, and like water companies in England they are facing the exact same problems.

I spoke to a family which includes 15 children and five adults, they are concerned their bills will increase when they are required to change to a water meter.

Billing: all customers supplied by the Company are charged approximately £4.25 a month (unmeasured) and approximately 25p per cubic meter if they are metered.

Unlike the UK, if they don't pay their supply is cut off and they can either pay direct to the water company or through special kiosks (more about that tomorrow).

Like back home, the water company does all it can to help promote water efficiency. This, however, is far easier to do in Zambia because schools and parents teach it, they also know what it's like to walk miles each day to get water, so they know how precious it is.

In the South East Water region customers use on average 160 litres of water a day. When the family I was with was told that they were extremely shocked as they use just 120 litres a day between 20! They could not understand why we needed that much.

You maybe thinking that because there is an official water supply network that residents have flushing toilets, baths and sinks. Some do, but that's the minority, most still have to walk to a communual tap, or standpipe to get their water.

Regarding sewerage, in Batoka there is not a sewerage system as yet so many still use their latrines.

This visit was extremely interesting as there are many similarities between English and Zambian companies.

In the afternoon we visited Silimi Village which is currently receiving WaterAid's help with its partner DAPP.

The village has a population of 279 spread over 46 households.

The organisations have been working to educate the community since August 2011 and they understood everything so quickly their water pump was installed in November 2011!

Here, I (along with Kevin Buck from Southern Water) helped build the concrete slab for a new latrine. We mixed concrete, created the moulds and did 'shining', which is basically smoothing the concrete so it is easy to clean. Hopefully next Thursday the concrete will be set and it can be moved into position above the pit.

The community of Silimi Village are relishing WaterAid and DAPP's help. They stone mason we were with, for example, is also the village builder. When WaterAid came they used kid existing skills and taught him how to build the latrine slab. due to his workload he already has three people working for him, orders from eight places/organisations to build latrines, plus complete the village's latrines.

Silimi Village

The water pump installed at Silimi village.

Before WaterAid and DAPP arrived villagers were travelling 4km to their nearest river to get water. They were regularly sick and since the pump has been installed their health has improved drastically.

Today was another really interesting day which reinforced my view that communities and private companies are willing to put in the effort in to better themselves.