The government plans to renovate the whole water infrastructure in Dar es Salaam city to enable more residents to access water by the end of 2014.

Speaking to this paper in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday, Ministry of Water (Monitoring and Evaluation) assistant director Joseph Kakunda said the renovation would start soon at Lower and Upper Ruvu water pumps.

According to him, it will involve the enlargement of existing water pipes from 1.2 to 2 inches to enable them to take more water.

He said Dar es Salaam residents had been experiencing water shortages due to poor water infrastructure system.

“The current water infrastructure was built many years ago when the population was still small but now it has increased without the improvement of the water infrastructure,” he said.

Due to poor infrastructure access to clean and safe water in Dar es Salaam has been reducing.

Statistics show that access to water now stands at 48 per cent from 55 per cent recorded a few years ago.

Access to clean and safe water in major towns in 19 regions, minus Dar es Salaam, stand at 88 per cent. In the whole country, access to safe and clean water is at least 58 per cent.

It is expected that after the renovation in 2014 city water blues will be history. The government also plans to drill 20 deep wells in Kimbiji to alleviate water problems in the city.

According to the Dar es Salaam Water Sewerage Corporation (Dawasco), drilling of the wells and expansion of water capacity at Upper and Lower Ruvu stations will increase water production.