BCC connects outlying areas

Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor

THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC), has started putting in place plans to connect outlying new housing developments to the city’s water and sewer reticulation system, although this will be done at the cost of  developers.

A number of suburbs located on the outskirts of the city, which falls under the Umguza Rural District Council,  have been operating without key social amenities,  with BCC previously refusing to connect them to its water and sewer reticulation system, arguing that the suburbs did not fall under its jurisdiction, despite being located just at the boundary between the city and Umguza.

There was hope in 2017, when the two local authorities signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU),where BCC agreed that they will service Mbundane and Emthunzini suburbs with water and sewer reticulation.

However, since then, no efforts were made to ensure the connection of the suburbs.

That saw in 2021, the Government instructing the two local authorities to constitute a joint committee that will help resolve the decade-long dispute that has seen some outlying suburbs going without key amenities like water and sewer reticulation systems.

According to the latest council report, the local authority has given the greenlight for the connection of 328 stands at a new housing development- King City- which is located in Umguza, adjacent to Bulawayo’s Sunninghill suburb.

A bulk meter would be installed at the suburb and will be billed and paid for in United States dollars.

“The King City suburb has a total of 10 000 stands once fully developed. The initial project phase had a total 328 stands. King City was not within the administrative boundary of the City of Bulawayo, but was with the Umguza Rural District Council boundary, which had made it not possible for the City of Bulawayo to connect the development.

“Taking note that the City of Bulawayo had been having water supply challenges due to the inconstant rainfall, resulting in the city adopting water shedding. The development would only be connected if investments were done to the existing infrastructure and development upstream of the water network, in order to accommodate the development and not affect the existing water reticulation,” reads part of the council report.

In order to connect to the existing sewer infrastructure, BCC noted that the developer had to invest in the construction of a 315 millimetre SDR51 sewer outfall to link with the existing outfall, at a cost of US$1.5 million.

They will also construct a sewer pump station to pump sewage into the exits outfall.

The pump station will have a bypass, with water polishing chambers to partially treat sewage in case of pump failure, at a cost of US$600 000.

The developer will further rehabilitate and upgrade the collapsed sewer outfall section along the Aiselby three outfall using 800mm GRP pipe, at a cost of US$1.5 million.

“Engineering Services had no objections to the submission of the sewer outfall design for approval and supervision of the outfall works for the King City medium density stands. However, the design of the outfall should consider future downstream developments like Killarney East, with a total of 244 stands in the sizing of the outfall.

“The Engineering Services had no objection to immediate connection of the 328 stands once the outfall had been constructed and as part of Phase one of the rehabilitation of the Aisleby three Outfall, the two collapsed sections were repaired. The compensation to the developer for the water and sewer bulk infrastructure costs over an eight year period,would be considered once a detailed document on the compensation method was submitted to the City of Bulawayo,” reads the report.