Bulawayo to receive only one day of water a week
By Henry Makiwa
4 December 2007
Bulawayo residents are to receive only one day's supply of water a week after the decommissioning of its fourth supply dam, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday.
The town council decommissioned Inyankuni Dam on Friday and with that the country’s second city can now only access water from Insiza Dam and a few boreholes at the Nyamandlovu Aquifer. Supplies from Umzingwane, Lower Ncema and Upper Ncema dams had already stopped after the dams ran dry.
To compound the problem Bulawayo is also grappling with a garbage crisis, as the council is failing to access fuel and spare parts for refuse collection vehicles. The water situation has already created an outbreak of diarrhoea with more than 3 000 cases being reported in the past month.
Mayor Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube said the more than one million Bulawayo residents will now only get water once a week for about 14 hours. Warning of dire “economic and health repercussions” the mayor called on the government to address the crisis as a matter of urgency.
He said: “Most of our support has been coming from a group of Canadian donors who have especially been helpful in providing preventative medication against diarrhoea. We are faced with a crisis never seen before in this city and unfortunately, as from today, we have to further tighten the water rationing regime. I myself have just missed my weekly water ration for the week, so I won’t be having any until about Thursday. The fortunate part is that the people of Bulawayo are resilient and loyal to the city, so we will weather the storm somehow.”
The government has been accused of turning a blind eye to the crisis. The Chinese company awarded the tender to construct a pipeline linking the idle Mtshabezi Dam to the city, abandoned the project five months ago due to non-payment.
Analysts have charged that the government’s indifference at the Bulawayo crisis stems from its intent to punish city councils run by the opposition.
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