Government, BCC to ensure water availability

Vusumuzi Dube, Online News Editor

 THE Government and Bulawayo City Council (BCC) officials are working together to ensure the current water challenges bedevilling the city do not affect schools and have allayed fears that some schools could be forced to close early.

With the worsening water shortages, schools in the city have come under the spotlight as the unavailability of water could have serious health effects on learners at a time when the country is grappling with a cholera outbreak.

BCC corporate communications manager, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said council and other stakeholders were doing their best to come up with short and medium term solutions to address the water challenges faced by the city and schools in particular.

She revealed that where possible, bowsers would deliver water, but the demand is high to meet everyone’s needs.

“The water issue is very critical, as we already know, and schools are equally affected by the obtaining situation. Schools are doing their best under the obtaining environment to conserve and stretch the available water to last until the next supplies as per the water shedding timetable. 

“Most schools have water storage tanks (JoJo tanks) and boreholes to complement the available supplies. Unfortunately some boreholes break down time and again and some have very low yields. Some schools with boreholes even avail water, outside the school perimeter, to residents as a result of the water crisis,” said Mrs Mpofu.

The council spokesperson noted that, as the situation continued to deteriorate, it was everyone’s prayer that the situation does not worsen to the extent of considering closing schools whose first term ends next week.

“Council is working with Central Government through a Water Crisis Committee to come up with short and medium term solutions to address water challenges. The call to close schools if it comes, will be made by relevant departments and Government Ministries that include the parent Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Ministry of Health and Child Care as well as the office of the Provincial Affairs Minister, among others. It may not come to that as the city is confident that solutions will be found to the crisis at hand.

“Council implores the school administrators and other stakeholders to cooperate and work together to ensure the situation is contained and to minimise chances of disease outbreaks in our schools. Our desire is that all existing boreholes be maintained to ensure additional water is availed for other uses, like cleaning of ablutions,” she said.

Mrs Mpofu further called on stakeholders to provide any possible assistance to the schools in the city, to manage the water crisis.

Meanwhile, water levels at the city’s supply dams continue to drop with the local authority revealing that as at last Friday, the dams are now 41,31 percent full.

Insiza Mayfair, with a carrying capacity of 173 491 000 cubic metres was at 56,8 percent, Inyankuni, which has a carrying capacity of 80 781 000 cubic metres is 27,8 percent full, Upper Ncema with a carrying capacity of 45 458 500 cubic metres is 16,7 percent full and Mtshabezi, with a carrying capacity of 51 996 000 cubic metres pegged at 71,5 percent of its capacity. 

The decommissioned Umzingwane Dam, with a carrying capacity of 44 663 500 cubic metres is at 2,79 percent capacity, while Lower Ncema, which has a carrying capacity of 18 237 700 cubic metres, as of yesterday was at 21,9 percent capacity.

The city has been going through one of its worst water crisis in recent years, which has seen city fathers warning residents that they could endure the 120-hour water shedding schedule throughout the year, which could be tightened further depending on the water levels within the supply dams.