The Mariental Municipality has blamed NamWater for a water supply crisis that left large parts of the town, including residential areas and schools, without reliable water last week.
Water has since been restored, but municipal councillor Daniel Gariseb says the town was left in the dark.
“The sudden water suspension without prior notice compromised public health and damaged our local economy,” he says.
NamWater head of communications Lot Ndamanomhata yesterday said the interruption was caused by a pipeline failure at the Hardap Water Treatment Plant last week.
Ndamanomhata explains that technical teams worked continuously for nearly 48 hours to repair the damaged pipeline, during which pumping operations were suspended.
He says NamWater informed the municipality through its chief executive officer (CEO) about the breakdown and warned that water supply could be interrupted if the town’s terminal reservoir dropped to critically low levels.
Following the completion of the repairs and the replacement of damaged electrical cables on Tuesday evening, water supply was briefly interrupted again on Wednesday, while the reservoir was refilled.
“Water supply has since been restored and stabilised,” Ndamanomhata said.
He says that NamWater communicates directly with its contracted customer, the municipality, which is responsible for distributing water to residents.
Ndamanomhata adds that the Hardap Regional Council, the Directorate of Water Supply and Sanitation Coordination (DWSSC) and NamWater recently established a joint operational committee to improve coordination, information sharing and emergency response to strengthen water supply across the Hardap region.
However, local authority councillor William Minnie maintains that communication from NamWater was inadequate throughout this incident.
“Although the damaged pipeline has been repaired, the terminal reservoir initially refilled much slower than expected, delaying the restoration of normal water supply,” he says.
The latest information indicates that the reservoir has now reached full capacity, and the municipality expects water supply to improve gradually as the network becomes fully pressurised, he adds.
Despite this, Minnie claims municipal officials receive very few operational updates from NamWater, making it difficult to provide residents with timely and comprehensive information about the situation.
At Mariental, water rationing periods happen during droughts or infrastructure repairs. During these times, they schedule specific hours for taps to run.
They also dispatch water trucks to informal settlements, and limit each household to just one bucket per day to save water, according to the municipality’s CEO Paul Nghiwilepo last year.
