The Water Resource Management Authority (WARMA) has announced that the timeline for the registration of boreholes which elapsed on the 31 of March 2019 has been extended by nine months to 31 December 2019.
The authority has advised that the announced extension only applies for domestic boreholes only owing to the notable challenges faced by the members of the public in their efforts to register their boreholes. The nine months extension was announced by water development minister, Dennis Wanchinga.
“Any possible extensions will be restricted to domestic boreholes only”. This is contained in a statement made available to the Zambian Business Times-ZBT issued by WARMA Acting Director General Lemmy Namayanga.
Namayanga says illegal commercial borehole owners will be penalized if they have not registered their boreholes and obtained the requisite water permits for their commercial harvesting of ground water. Members of the public are still being allowed and urged to register their boreholes at WARMA or any of the Catchment officers or indeed through the online platform so that by the end of this extension, all members of the public are covered.
To date, 27,287 existing boreholes have been registered while 77 Drilling companies have been licensed out of the 96 currently registered. A total of 10, 736 applications to drill boreholes were made of which 18 were rejected. The latest full list of drilling companies will soon be published.
Only licensed drilling companies will be operating legally, failure by any drilling company to obtain a license but found drilling will be dealt with according to the law.
