In a clarification note, dated June 25, and to which Lusa had access, the company says it was aware of the Lusa article, aired on the international channel SIC Notícias, about the situation of those residents "drawing water from a pipe on the road. public".
According to EPAL, this is "a rupture caused by the residents through an old water pipe", which has become "a water supply point for some residents of the area".
The public company claims that the São João neighborhood "was included in the household connections project, but due to insufficient water volume at the Cazenga Water Distribution Center, only part of the neighborhood receives water every other day."
The São João district is part of the urban district of Hoji-ya-Henda, municipality of Cazenga, one of the most populous in the capital.
Children, young people and adults struggle in a public pipe on the side of the road, damaged by them, to get water that for weeks has not flowed in that area of the municipality of Cazenga, reported Lusa on Friday.
Several neighbourhoods, districts and municipalities in Luanda face the scarcity of drinking water and the alternative, for many, has been to travel long distances with containers on their heads in search of water.
To make up for the lack of water, dozens of residents of that neighborhood run to a fountain, created by a pipe they destroyed, to get water.
Between disputes and heated discussions and even exposed to the danger of being run over, as it was on the side of the Porto Santo road, women, men and children would not budge from there.
"We have been without water for many years here in the neighborhood, I am a resident of the neighborhood, I grew up here and it is complicated. This confusion comes because there is no collaboration," he told Lusa Ana Adriano.
The resident of the São João neighborhood lamented the lack of water in the district, which has lasted for weeks, and assumed that the residents "decided to destroy the main pipe", dug two meters deep.
The lack of water in that locality was also described and deplored by other residents who asked for "urgent intervention by the authorities", fearing, above all, for the spread of covid-19 due to "lack of regular sanitation"
A process of "strengthening the water supply" began in February 2020, says EPAL, ensuring that it "substantially improved the water supply in part of the neighbourhood".
"Given this situation, EPAL is going to install, provisionally, collective points to serve the population of that area, while the work is underway to bring water to the homes in need", reads the note.
The government, the public company said, "has devised several structural projects to improve the supply of drinking water to the province of Luanda, in particular the project to build the third phase of the Candelabro Water Treatment Station".
The referred project, "which will benefit the municipality of Cazenga", assures EPAL, is scheduled for completion next December, underlines the document signed by Albertina Baptista, director of Communication and Marketing at EPAL.
