COST OF SUPPLYING WATER
NamWater is operated on a cost recovery basis; therefore the Water Utility has to recover money spent in the process of supplying water and the construction of new water infrastructure or schemes and the further maintenance of the same.
The process of supplying water is a costly exercise. NamWater infrastructure which consists of dams, reservoirs, water pipes, purification plants etc., is not only expensive to build but also to maintain. Laying a water pipeline for a kilometer can easily cost N$ 5 million. One of the biggest challenges facing the Water Utility is in fact that many of our people do not live where water is found. This means that NamWater has to construct and lay down pipelines covering long distances in order to take water to where people live.
The transportation of this water to remote areas of our country which are often inaccessible requires electricity, which is one of the highest cost factors on the company expenses. The tariffs increment, which the company is granted by the Cabinet of the Republic of Namibia, does not always cover the true costs of the water supply, so often the company strives hard to manage with the little resources it gets in order to keep the water flowing and at the same time also to maintain the aging infrastructure. Considering all of the said, it is a remarkable achievement that the average NamWater water tariff is circa 1.5 c per liter, which is about 1000 times cheaper than the similar bottled product in the market place.
