By George Mponda

Karonga, February 25, Mana: Northern Region Water Board Chief Executive Officer, Francis Munthali, has revealed the board’s plans to revamp water supply systems in all northen region districts through a European Investment Bank (EIB) funded project.

In an interview on Saturday on the sidelines of a media tour for Karonga Town Water Supply Project, Munthali said the Board wants to achieve increased access to safe water for everyone and improved sanitation and hygiene services.

He said at the moment, the Karonga Town Water Supply Project is at 92 percent completion rate.

“Another milestone we have achieved is that we had successful discussions with EIB to improve water supply by dealing with reliability of power.

"The bank has agreed to allocate us €47 million (approximately K90 billion) which we are going to use to implement this project. We will install solar plants in all our pumping stations to ensure that people have un-interrupted supply," he said.

Munthali said the use of solar panels will reduce the cost of production hence making water available to customers at fair prices.

He said, through the project, NRWB will also raise the height of the dam at Lunyangwa in Mzuzu by 1.5 metres for it to produce more water for Mzuzu residents.

He added that the existing water treatment plant in Mzuzu will be upgraded from the current capacity of 21 million litres per day to 30 million to cater for the ever growing demand for water in the city.

NRWB Board Chairperson, Frank Mwenifumbo, said the Board is fulfilling its mandate of implementing government’s water and sanitation policy.