Central African Republic : IOWater is working for the ICRC

As part of the process of recovering the drinking water supply system and securing the facilities of the Central African Water Supply Company (SODECA) in Bangui, and following the recent events, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) asked IOWater to organize in 2015 a training session on the "maintenance of water production plants and pumping stations".

The assistance provided by the ICRC in Central Africa is split into several components:

 

The training session took place over two periods a month apart and covered centrifugal pumps (hydraulics of pumps and systems, conducting pumping stations) and mechanical maintenance (compressors, boosters, power delivery, technical repair and primary routine maintenance).

 

The group was made up of 14 technicians and engineers working in Bangui facilities for most of them.

 

Practical work was done in-situ: performance measurements for raw water pumps, inflating an anti-hammer tank, disassembly and reassembly of a surface pump.

 

An important number of ICRC-provided tools and spare parts were delivered to “SODECA” shortly after the course.

 

Through effective collaboration between the GOURDIN Company and IOWater, an important preparatory work was made possible with the trainees before the overhaul of the raw water pumps by the manufacturer. The visit of repair shops, the inventory of spare parts in stock, detailed study of the machine design and description of the different phases of the overhaul enabled the trainees to assimilate the nature of the work that would be carried out a few weeks later.

 

If the basics of maintenance and hydraulics were acquired, it remained to improve knowledge of the system to correctly interpret malfunctions and take appropriate corrective action. It was the subject of further training also provided in 2015 by IOWater.