Government has started a campaign to drill a borehole at each of the nearly 10 000 schools in the country as the Second Republic forges ahead with its vision to improve livelihoods and develop the economy. Clean water provision is one of the goals under the National Development Strategy 1 (NDS1).
Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development Minister Dr Anxious Masuka, said this while officially opening the 22nd WaterNet Symposium which is being hosted by the National University of Science and Technology (Nust) through its department of Civil and Water Engineering held recently.
The theme of the conference is “Integrated Water Resources Management for Sustainable Development in Eastern and Southern Africa.”
Dr Masuka said his ministry is seized with harnessing water resources for social and economic development. He said his ministry also superintends over 530 water points through the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa), supplying 33 million cubic metres of treated water and 1,3 billion cubic metres raw bulk water annually.
“Zimbabwe is endowed with some 10 700 dams having been built, but only a handful are being fully utilised. This presents an opportunity to deploy new technologies and Government has now adopted a new philosophy for these projects as it seeks to accelerate irrigation development from the current 216 000 ha to over 420 000ha by 2024,” said the minister.
“Government envisages drilling about 35 000 boreholes in each of the country’s 35 000 villages and 9 600 boreholes at each of the country’s 9 600 schools by 2024. A further 3 600 boreholes, two each in each of our 18 000 wards for youth horticulture projects will be drilled.”
