SWAZILAND: Govt gears up to tackle water crisis

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

MBABANE, 6 Oct 2005 (IRIN) - Swaziland's Water Services Board is gearing up to truck six million litres of water to drought-stricken areas along the border with Mozambique as the country grapples with a serious water crisis.

"I urged government over two weeks ago to instruct the Disaster Task Force to treat the situation as an emergency," said Minister of Agriculture Mtiti Fakudze, who is also the parliamentary representative for the Dvokodvweni constituency in eastern Swaziland.

The southern and eastern lowveld regions of the country appear to be entering their sixth year of drought: rivers and ground-fed springs that once supplied small amounts of water have dried up during an extended heat wave that began in late winter and has continued through spring.

Ben Nsibandze, director of the National Disaster Task Force Early Warning Unit, said Swaziland might appeal to international donors for assistance in trucking water to drought-hit communities.

The national water board's donation of six million litres is a scaled-up version of a government programme that currently supplies water to some schools.

Two schools in the hard-hit area near the Lomahasha border post in the northeast have not received water, and have run out of funds to purchase it at R300 (US $46) per 5,000 litres. The schools informed their constituency representative, MP Menjeni Mahlalela, that they would have to close down before students could sit for exams if no relief was forthcoming.

Residents of bone-dry, poverty-stricken Malindza, 40 km west of the border, had to pay up to R5 for 100 litres of water from farms with boreholes, and some residents reportedly travelled 20 kilometres to buy water.

At Lomahasha border post, residents who used to draw water from a natural spring now find it dry during the daylight hours. "We have to go to the spring in the middle of the night, about 2 a.m., when the water starts flowing again. Before dawn, what little water there is has been exhausted," one resident reported.

In other areas of the lowveld, cattle and humans shared the remaining watering holes, prompting health officials to express concerns about the spread of disease.

The central Manzini region, the agricultural heartland of the country, has had hardly any rain in months. Gunmetal skies over the commercial hub of Manzini town have failed to yield measurable rain in four weeks.

In its newly published report on the national economy, the Central Bank of Swaziland blamed drought conditions for a growing nationwide food shortage. A source at the bank told IRIN that weather predictions by the National Meteorological Service indicated poor rainfall during the planting season, which usually begins in October.

"Clearly, we will continue to see an underperformance in the weather-dependent agricultural sector if the rain patterns of the past years persist," the source commented.

However, MPs from drought-stricken areas say food is not the only concern - their constituents are becoming increasingly desperate over their inability to secure water for drinking, washing and cooking.

[ENDS]