BOREHOLE FOR 250 ESITJENI HOUSEHOLDS

ESITJENI - Travelling long distances to fetch water from the streams will soon be a thing of the past for residents of Esitjeni.

This comes after a donor from Turkey dug a borehole, which is part of a water project worth E65 000 in the area.
The borehole was dug last week and is yet to be connected to benefit residents from about 250 households.
According to the Lobamba Constituency Indvuna Yenkhundla, Bhekisisa Bhembe, the donor offered to lend a helping hand to any area which desperately needed water within the constituency.

Decided

“We have many areas which have been without water for years under Lobamba Constituency. The areas included Ezulwini and Esitjeni. We met the donor and we decided that the borehole should be dug at Esitjeni because there is an ongoing water project, which has been allocated E7.5 million by Micro Projects,” Bhembe said.
He stated that residents of Esitjeni had been without water, resulting in them travelling several kilometres to either Ntambande or Mhlambanyatsi.

He said he was yet to advise that the water should be connected to the water taps, which remained a white elephant on the street. Bhembe said this would minimise new connections to the homesteads.

“The water taps may look old but I have been advised that they are still in good condition. The residents will have to purchase a solar panel in order to save electricity,” he said. The area was visited over the weekend and it was discovered that most of the homesteads were located far from the rivers, which made it impossible for the residents to divert the water from the sources.
The gradient is so poor that the water could not be diverted to the homesteads without a pressure pump, which required electricity or a solar panel.
Indvuna Mngilikijana Msibi confirmed the scarcity of water in the area.

 Msibi stated that most people did not have access to clean water, resulting in them travelling several kilometres to the rivers.
He said the few people who had access to clean water used a borehole which was dug by donors from Germany a few years back.
“We tried a water project but it failed due to financial constraints. If you can go around, you can see a number of water taps without water next to the road. Water shortage has been a big challenge since I was born here. We requested the constituency team to at least push for a water project this term. We have been informed that the project was intended for Ezulwini, however, it was channelled to Esitjeni because a water project budget has been allocated for Ezulwini,” he said. Msibi stated that digging of the borehole came as a relief to the residents of the area.

He said the residents would be able to water their home-based gardens.
He also highlighted that some residents avoided water from the big rivers because it was polluted.

Disposable

He made an example that some people literally dumped waste such as disposable nappies in the rivers.
He stated that there were many reasons to believe that the water from the rivers was unsafe for human consumption.
He mentioned that the residents opted for small streams as sources of water. 

While in the area, some women, including an elderly, were seen carrying clothes along the road.
They confided that they had been to the river since morning because they struggled to get water in the area.
“The best thing is to take your laundry to the river because washing requires a lot of water,” said one of the women.

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