More than a thousand new sources of drinking water, including standpipes and wells, are under construction in rural areas in the central Mozambican province of Zambezia.Zambezia has more than four million inhabitants, buy just over one and a half million people in the province have access to clean drinking water.According to Friday’s issue of the Maputo daily “Noticias”, the provision of clean drinking water is being advanced by the provincial government under its Economic and Social Plan and within the National Programme for Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (PRONASAR).According to the governor of Zambezia, Francisco Itai Meque, constructing new water sources is being pushed to improve the current levels of coverage, particularly in the rural areas.He affirmed that the government is well aware of the implications of the low coverage rate, but stressed that this is a sector that is receiving special attention for public investment.A major problem standing in the way of increasing the coverage rate is that the Zambezia provincial government does not have the financial resources to fund rehabilitation work on the small water supply systems in several of the district capitals. These small systems have been broken down for over thirty years or are obsolete, and it is not likely that in the short term these will be rehabilitated with public funds.According to “Noticias”, cooperation partners are not interested in financing the rehabilitation of these systems in small towns because they are allegedly more interested in working in the rural interior.The non-functioning systems affect thousands of people living in the district capitals of Alto Molocue, Gile, Maganja da Costa, Pebane, Namacurra, Morrumbala, Mopeia, Ile, Milange and Namarroi. In total Zambezia has sixteen districts.
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