It is a rainy Tuesday afternoon in Lusaka’s Linda Township in Zambia. Normally in such type of weather, streets are expected to be deserted but that is not the case for Linda Township. The streets are dotted with people, young and old, carrying huge yellow and white containers in search of water.
- This is nothing new for the residents, who trek many kilometres to the nearby farm areas to draw water on a daily basis.
- If they are lucky, they get to have water running from their home taps once or twice a week for a few hours, then it is back to the rural routine.
- The story is no different for the privileged few who have had boreholes sunk at their homes in a bid to ease the water crisis.
- What is worse for the residents is that despite their situation, residents continue being billed monthly by the Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC). The residents also feel cheated by LWSC that despite the completion of the Linda Water Supply project, they have continued to have erratic water supply.
A resident, Loveness Phiri, said the water shortage is a great inconvenience because there is always commotion when they go to fetch water as the majority of them have one reliable source where they find it. Ms Phiri said at times people walk about three kilometres to mount Makulu in search of the commodity.
“This is not healthy at all. The situation can lead to an outbreak of water-borne diseases such as cholera and dysentery,” she said.
