Namibia’s state-owned company Namibia Water Corporation (NamWater), the government of Namibia and the Desert Research Foundation of Namibia is to invest in desalination to supply drinking water to the country’s residents living in dry areas, reported Pumps Africa.

NamWater, responsible for distributing drinking water in Namibia, announced last week that five companies submitted bids to the tender to choose operators to implement environmental impact assessments (EIAs) to build two desalination plants in Grünau and Bethany, situated in southern Namibia.

These two arid towns are being used as a test site for the two groundwater desalination projects as drinking water is very scarce.

The five companies that submitted bids to the tender are:

Environmental Compliance Consulting D&P Engineers & Environmental Consultants African Planning Forum KPM Environmental Consulting Matrix Consulting Services

All the companies applied for both desalination plants, except for African Planning Forum that only applied for the Bethany desalination plant.

NamWater will announce its verdict in a few weeks.

The design for the construction of the two plants will be launched in September 2019.