Government Withholds Water to Bulawayo
Source: SW Radio Africa (London)
Date: 20 September 2007
Author: Henry Makiwa
The Zimbabwe government has been accused of holding back water supplies from Bulawayo, after revelations that a nearby dam would have enough reserves to serve the city for 18 months, if plans were made to access the water.
It was learnt Thursday that Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo had assured Bulawayo city elders at a meeting in August, that construction of a pipeline to draw water from Mtshabezi dam to Bulawayo was in progress. However a team of clergymen currently assisting the Bulawayo city council, together with the donor community and non-governmental organisations, found little evidence of work when they visited the dam site last week.
The developments follow alerts raised by the Bulawayo city council in the state-controlled Chronicle newspaper Thursday, advising residents in the country's second biggest city to "brace themselves for the worst ". The paper reported that Inyankuni Dam, one of the two dams left supplying Bulawayo with water, was running dry.
Pastor Promise Manceda, who leads a Christian alliance that is has been at the forefront of assisting Bulawayo residence with water, alleges government has reneged on its promise.
Manceda said: "The government has shown little effort and care to resolve the water crisis here. The minister's promise has yielded nothing because there's no trace of work whatsoever at Mtshabezi and yet the people are going through the worst water crisis in the history of this city.
"There's an outbreak of diarrhoeal diseases and in this situation there's danger of cholera and dysentery looming. We as the church, with the assistance of other donor organisations such as the Tear Fund, are doing as much as we can to supply the people of the western suburbs with 25 000 litre tanks of water," Manceda said.
If Inyankuni dam, now understood to be only 7 percent full, dries up Bulawayo will have only one supply dam, Insiza. According to official information Bulawayo normally consumes 150 000 cubic metres of water daily, but is now receiving only 69 000 cubic metres from the two dams.
The city council has drilled boreholes in some parts of the city and provided bowsers in other areas. The crisis has created a thriving black market as some residents corruptly acquire water from unscrupulous city council employees at the cost of Z$10 000 for 20 litres.
Three of Bulawayo's supply dams -- Lower Ncema, Upper Ncema and Umzingwane -- have already been decommissioned after drying up.
Speaking with the Chronicle, a Bulawayo City Council spokesman, Pathisa Nyathi said residents, most of whom are receiving water supplies for a few hours three times a week, should expect an even tougher water rationing schedule owing to the depleted supplies.
Nyathi said: "Residents should expect the situation to get worse. The levels in Inyankuni Dam are now very low and we are expecting the dam to be decommissioned next month although it could even be decommissioned before the end of this month because the temperatures are extremely high.
"Our salvation, as things stand now, will only come through the rains," he said.