MALAWI: the Nkhata Bay drinking water plant once again serves 105,000 people
On 8 September 2023, the Nkhata Bay drinking water plant, located in the capital of the eponymous district, was re-commissioned in the presence of Malawian President Lazarus Chakwera. The rehabilitated plant has a production capacity of 20,000 m3 of drinking water per day.
The drinking water production capacity of Nkhata Bay, the capital of the district of the same name in Malawi, has increased 13-fold in recent months. This is thanks to the modernisation of its drinking water treatment plant, the work on which has increased the plant’s capacity to 20,000 m3 per day, compared with 1,500 m3 before its extension. The rehabilitated plant was re-commissioned on 8 September 2023, in the presence of Malawi’s Head of State, Lazarus Chakwera.
Drinking water from the plant is transported via a 29 km pipeline to reservoirs with a combined capacity of 8,050 m3, then via a 122 km distribution network to serve the residents of Nkhata Bay.
“The facility that is back in service today is a true reflection of Malawi’s Agenda 2063. This is not a favour from the government to the people of Nkhata Bay, but a right that the community must enjoy from its government,” said President Lazarus Chakwera at the plant’s recommissioning ceremony. In Nkhata Bay, 105,000 people will benefit from the rehabilitated drinking water plant. As well as improving water supply, the work will gradually improve sanitation in the Nkhata Bay district, which has long been a hot spot for cholera epidemics. The work as a whole cost 30.55 million dollars.
The water project will extend as far as Kapingama in the north (6.2 km), Chisu in the north-east (17.7 km), Mpamba (via Pundu) in the west (19 km), Chombe in the south-west (15.1 km), Chizi Point (via Bwelero) in the south-east (11 km) and Sanga in the south (25.9 km). “We have a number of projects of this type throughout the country, including the one I’m going to inaugurate at Mangochi next month. In Karonga, we are on the verge of completing the water and sanitation project”, says President Lazarus Chakwera.
