The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
“City dam levels double as rainfall pattern holds; Bulawayo to abandon water shedding,” are but some of the newspaper headlines that greet residents at strategic newspaper selling sites dotted in the city as the water situation continues to improve.
The water story forms part of the main news in the media in Bulawayo and could not be ignored as the past year was one which both the local authority and the city’s residents would rather want to quickly forget, not only because there was the Covid-19 pandemic to endure with but because Bulawayo went through its worst water crisis in recent years.
What started off as a 36-hour water shedding schedule increased to 144 hours and eventually saw the local authority adopt an as and when available schedule which saw some residents go for months without water supplies.
However, the situation has vastly improved in recent weeks, with the city’s director of engineering services, Engineer Simela Dube assuring residents that the water available at the city’s supply dams was enough to last the city till the next rain season.
However, a number of residents are still to believe the stories that come out of the media and no longer know whether the newspapers are lying or not. They have been opening their taps to the little whistling sound as only air will be coming out and nothing more to confirm the reported water improvement situation.
Ms Ntombizodwa Dube is one resident who gets livid with the reports and the statement by Eng Dube as the improvements meant nothing to them. For her and a number of Old Pumula residents, the improvements have not yet translated to any improvements in how they are getting water. They are not even getting it.
They are still living in the bad old days of water unavailability and now feel neglected by the local authority as last month marked exactly a year since they last had water in their taps.
Their life now revolves around waiting for the council bowser, which at times does not come leaving residents with the task of going to neighbouring suburbs to get water from good Samaritans. Ms Dube recently took to Facebook to vent out her anger, penning an open letter to the local authority begging for some form of intervention in their dilemma. The residents say no communication has been made to them regarding the developments in their area, that now has no councillor owing to the political recalls that have taken place in the MDC party.
“I am writing this letter on my behalf and that of my fellow brothers and sisters who have not had water for the past year. We last got our supplies in February 2020. Our main concern is that everyone else in Bulawayo even those who were not getting any water like us are now celebrating that finally the precious liquid is coming through their taps.
“I have not seen any of your engineers or plumbers on the ground making an effort to solve our challenge or let alone communicate with us on what is happening. All we see are the guys who are not even monitored who have been digging for the past four months and are leaving our roads in a terrible state which is now a triple blow because the bowser and refuse collection are finding it difficult to access the roads let alone our small private cars,” reads part of the letter posted on the local authority’s Facebook page.
Sunday News managed to track down Ms Dube who said they now felt like second class citizens as despite their continued complaints the local authority was not forthcoming in proffering a solution. She said some residents were now considering not paying their rates as they were not getting the services they deserved.
“I am pretty sure if this was somewhere in Hillside or Burnside this problem would have been resolved a long time ago. We have always been treated as second class citizens. We have constantly lodged our complaints with BCC corporate communications manager who tells us she will engage the relevant department, but it’s now a year and we are led to guess she is still engaging. At times we wonder why we are even paying our bills because we are not getting the service that we are paying for. Even the bowsers that are meant to supply us with water are not reliable as some days they do not come, it is frustrating to say the least,” said Ms Dube.
Another resident, Mr Vusilizwe Tshabangu said their plight was further worsened by the fact that their councillor, Clyton Zana had been recalled by the MDC-T.
“We now have a caretaker councillor (Clr Sikhululekile Moyo), who is not even affected by this crisis, besides she has her own ward which she has to cater for. We are clearly an abandoned lot as no one seems to care about our plight, clearly they know our problem but just do not want to attend to it,” said Mr Tshabangu.
Contacted for comment, Mrs Mpofu said the challenges could among other things be pipe bursts or clogged valves, which she said their plumbers were trying to rectify.
“There are some parts of the mentioned areas that are still under private developers and are not yet handed over to council. Council is now working together with residents’ representatives and developers to rectify the challenges. For the normal network, challenges could be due to pipe bursts, clogged valves among others, which the plumbers are in the process of removing and cleaning as well as replacing old valves with new ones in order to optimize pressure distribution in the network,” said Mrs Mpofu.
However, by last Friday the affected areas still had no water, with the residents claiming they had not seen any council plumbers in the suburb, as claimed by the corporate communications manager.
