Letwin Mubonesi
In fire fighting the water crisis at the Harare City Council, the government has taken a step further as acting President Kembo Mohadi recently facilitated the clearance of water treatment chemicals at the border while the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) and District Development Fund (DDF) intervened with technical assistance.
The concern is whether this seven day intervention is enough for a large city like Harare to go on. The rain season has approached and citizens have shared concern over the ill preparedness by both the government and the councils in providing health amenities for the public.
Each year Zimbabwe looses lives to cholera and typhoid, and there are outcries continually of lack of austerity in government expenditure especially the presidential travels which has been allegedly notorious for hiring chartered flights while the citizens suffer. Women and girls bear the brant of violence, over working when water is scarce including the dehumanisation when dealing with their own period.
Morton Jaffray Waterworks treatment plant had been shut down a few days prior after the City Council ran out of chemicals to treat water. Pumping of water at Morton Jaffray was expected to resume immediately following Government’s intervention, with Acting Harare Mayor Councillor Enock Mupamawonde also announcing that the city had secured seven days’ supply of water treatment chemicals from a local company.
Acting Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi said Government had lost faith in Harare city fathers as they have failed to provide basic services which saw water supply shortages across the entire Harare Metropolitan area.
Minister Ziyambi said the Government had set up a committee of technocrats that will assist council in handling the $37,4 million that was availed by Treasury last week for capital projects following the reports that previous grants and loans were abused.
“The Government has facilitated priority clearance for the lorry carrying chlorine gas from South Africa. The consignment should arrive within the next 36 hours. The council has secured enough calcium hypochlorite granules, also known as HTH, for the next 36 hours.”
“We met with the Acting President and immediately we set up mechanisms to ensure that South African and Zimbabwe revenue authorities expedite the clearance of those chemicals so that they can arrive within the next 36 hours.”
“Morton Jaffray Waterworks commenced operations earlier today. The conveyance of the water in trunk lines will commence anytime now and people can start to expect water in their taps around midnight. A further 35 tonnes of HTH has been secured to provide a stockpile to ensure that this shut down of the water works does not recur,” he said.
The minister warned people not to get into council in order to secure deals for themselves without providing services. He added that Harare City Council is not doing its job properly and should pull up as the Government can not continue bailing them up.
“We are giving them money for capital projects, but what we have decided to do is to have a committee to support them, we no longer trust them, we have in the past given them monies, loans and they bought vehicles so we want this money to be used for the specific purpose it has been released hence we are setting up this committee to assist them do that.
“We believe that Harare City Council is not doing its job and Government cannot continue bailing out the city. It used to be one of the richest councils and in fact they prioritize other things as opposed to service delivery and we are now demanding that they become accountable to residents and we are going to ensure that happens and be strict in terms of the way they conduct themselves,” he said.
Meanwhile, ZINWA acting chief executive officer Engineer Taurayi Maurikira said the team was already on the ground working at Morton Jaffrey which was reopened after getting some local supplies of chemicals for water treatment.
He said, “Under the section 5(e) and (i) of ZINWA Act it is empowered to intervene when there are challenges in local authorities. We hold the mandate to supply water, but it is the local authorities that that have the powers to distribute it.We are part of the technical committees set up by Government that are looking at Morton Jaffrey by providing technical knowledge from the production line to the distribution water points.”
District Development Fund (DDF)’s Water Supplies and Maintenance director Mr Edwin Toriro revealed that it was in the process of drilling more boreholes in Harare to alleviate the water crisis following allocation of $60 million for projects by the government. To date they had recently drilled 15 boreholes in Glen View, Harare.
“Government allocated $60 million for the year 2019 which is meant to cover borehole drilling and installation, irrigation development, small scale irrigation scheme, small piped water system rehabilitation and hand pumping rehabilitation,” he said.
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