Bulawayo runs dry amid fears of disease outbreak
By Tichaona Sibanda
3 August

The former governor of Matebeleland north Welshman Mabhena has described the critical water situation in Bulawayo as ‘dangerous’ and potentially catastrophic.

Some parts of Bulawayo, the country’s second largest city, have been without water for the last five days. Authorities in the city on Thursday issued a warning of a serious potential outbreak of disease after a week without a drop of water. This is the first time in the city’s history that such a health warning has been issued.

Mabhena said ever since he was born 80 years ago he has never experienced such a serious water shortage as that currently sweeping through the city. In other areas of Bulawayo, residents are getting water for only seven hours, after every two days. The city council has been advising people to fill their containers and cover them up. Most of the city’s major dams have dried up.

‘We are living in fear because if there is any disease that breaks out now, we will all die like flies. Ever since government took over the running of water from city councils, everything just started crumbling,’ Mabhena said.

When the last of the five dams was completed in the city in 1979, Bulawayo had a population of around 250,000 and the City Council could manage the needs of residents and factories. Now the city has a population of 1,5 million people and the same five dams cannot cope with the requirements of the residents. Mabhena put the blame squarely on the Zanu (PF) led government.

‘In the next coming months Mugabe and his ministers will come and lie to us that plans are at an advanced stage to draw water from the Matebeleland Zambezi Water Project to alleviate the water shortages in the city. These people have been lying to us since Independence,’ said Mabhena.

The project, a long held plan to tap water from the Zambezi River, was mooted way back in 1912. It involves the construction of the Gwayi-Shangani dam and a 450-kilometre pipeline from the Zambezi River to bring water to Bulawayo and surrounding areas.

In Harare there are many reports of taps running dry, even though the city’s main supply dams are more than 60 percent full, according to figures from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority.

With more than half of Harare’s three million inhabitants now experiencing water shortages, residents were resorting to desperate measures to find supplies. The capital city has experienced intermittent water shortages for the last two years, due mainly to poor management and ageing infrastructure.