No water for Harare and Chitungwiza

By Tererai Karimakwenda
14 January, 2008

Residents of Harare and Chitungwiza discovered on Sunday that they would be without water supplies for a week, starting Monday. The Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) announced in the state paper the Sunday Mail that the water termination was due to major electricity power cuts at the Morton Jaffray Waterworks in Harare. Zinwa’s general manager Lisben Chipfunde is quoted as saying that intermittent power cuts on Friday and early Saturday morning caused the water treatment plant to fail.

Millions of residents in the country’s largest city will now be scrambling for safe drinking water. This adds to an already critical situation where fuel ran out on Friday and many were left stranded. Ongoing power cuts worsened recently after it was revealed that Mozambique had cut off supplies to Zimbabwe due to huge unpaid debts while our own power plants suffered breakdowns and are in need of urgent repairs. Food shortages are worsening and last week it was reported that pharmacies had run out of most basic medical drugs.

The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has expressed great concern over the lack of water. Spokesperson Mfundo Mlilo said there is an urgent cholera crisis already, and it will now get worse. He explained that in Harare’s suburb of Mabvuku, there is a cholera crisis that government is trying to downplay. Mlilo said: “Our research, the results of which will be out soon, indicates that almost all households in Mabvuku have either treated or are treating a cholera case, which means up to 15,000 or 20,000 people have been affected, in Mabvuku alone.”

CHRA is concerned because government has failed to respond to the cholera crisis in a smaller area. Now that all of Harare and Chitungwiza are at increased risk, a much more serious cholera outbreak is looming.

Chipfunde at Zinwa claims the problems are beyond their control, while CHRA says Zinwa itself is to blame. Supply services have deteriorated rapidly in all 14 cities where the authority has taken over water management.

Mlilo said the takeovers are political, intended to give government access to all revenue from water services, which previously went to local authorities. These are large sums of money. In Harare 50% of the city’s intake from rates came from fees charged for water services. In Bulawayo revenue from water services accounted for at least 45-50% of city’s revenue. Zinwa, as a quasi-government entity, now has access to these funds.

Mlilo said water problems began before Zinwa took over and the takeovers have compounded problems that were already there. Many parts of Mabvuku have had no water for almost a year now.

.