The Kafubu Water and Sewerage Company (KWSC), a water utility in charge of supplying the districts of Ndola, Masaiti and Luanshya in Zambia’s Copperbelt province, has recently announced that a USD 353 million multi-purpose dam is set to be constructed on Kafula-Futa River to improve water supply and support sanitation services in the region.
The dam’s construction, proposed by KWSC to the Ministry of Local Government and Housing (MLGH) in August, 2014, follows cleaning works on the Kafubu River which started one month later and aimed at removing weeds and silt to improve water supply in Ndola’s southern area.
The Kafula-futa dam is part of a national program called the National Urban Water and Sanitation Programme (NUWSSP) which aims at reaching full sanitation coverage in the Copperbelt by 2030 up from the current average between 65% and 89%, and a country average at around 90% in the same year according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
According to the KWSC’ Public Relations Officer Margaret Zulu, the dam’s completion will not only improve water supply and support sanitation coverage in Ndola, Masaiti and Luanshya, but will also support the economic development of the region by being used as a tourist attraction and creating 3,000 new jobs.
KWSC is one of the best performed water utilities out of nine in the country recording a water quality ratio at 95% above a country’s average of 93%, water service coverage at 88% above an average of 82.1% and sanitation coverage at 62% against a country’s average of 56% according to National Water Supply and Sanitation Council (NWASCO) latest statistics.
According to NWASCO, the support of the Devolution Trust Fund (DTF) and the Zambian Government, utilities companies have helped to raise the percentage of the urban population served with water from 58.1% in 2006 to 83.8% in 2014, totaling 5,131,657 people.
Meanwhile sanitation coverage, it has been improved from 41.9% to 60.7% in the same period by serving a total of 3,716,486 urban people.
In Zambia there are currently 13 dams with of which 8 on the Zambesi river, 2 on the Kafue river, 2 on the Kalungwishi river, and 1 on Luapula river.
