Lilongwe, June 9, 2015: August House on Tuesday passed a MK11.2 billion loan authorization bill titled “European Investment Bank (Lilongwe Water Resources Efficiency Programme) loan (Authorization)”that will cater on water supply in Lilongwe.
Speaking during the 45th session of parliamentary deliberation, Minister of finance Dr Goodall Gondwe said Government will borrow 24 million Euros from European Investment Bank which is wealthy MK11.2 billion.
“The bill’s intended purpose is to increasing efficiency in water supply to the City the program will cover 250 thousand new connections across the city of Lilongwe as Kamuzu Dam will be extended to 5 meters in order to increase the water capacity.
On how the program is going to benefit the people of Lilongwe, the Minister of Finance said the program will increase productivity capacity of Lilongwe Water Board as the production cost and water loss will be reduced.
He further said the program will introduce the supply of the prepaid meters and improve water situation within Lilongwe.
In an interview with Malawi News Agency (Mana), Gondwe said “Lilongwe is the capital city of Malawi, what benefit Lilongwe therefore benefits the whole country. That bill is about improving quality of water supply in Lilongwe city therefore it is very important for us to pass the bill.”
“Can you imagine a delegation coming from United States of America and find that we had no any water, he won’t say there is no water in Lilongwe but he will say no water in Malawi so we had to do something about the water situation,” he said.
He said government decided to borrow from the European Investment Bank because the terms of the loan the bank offered was fair as low as 1.45 percent interest annually and also the payment period is reasonable.
