The Sunday News
Sharon Chimenya, Masvingo Correspondent
MASVINGO City Council has assured its residents of adequate water supply this summer saying they will not resort to a stringent water rationing regime.
The local authority has often been caught in perennial water challenges during the summer season when the demand is usually high while the problems are compounded by equipment breakdowns.
Masvingo City acting enginner, Kudzaishe Mbetu, said they were already working on servicing their equipment in preparation for the summer season. He said they do not foresee any water rationing regime being introduced.
“Storage tanks will not increase the amount of water we are supplying but what we are saying is that we are going to ensure that the amount of water that we use per day, which is 30 mega litres, is not going to leak. We are simply working on closing all the leakages fully aware that water will be on high demand during the hot season.
“We are therefore not going to ration our water, but we are going to reduce the supply hours. For example, if we were supplying eight hours per day, we will reduce it to 6 or 5 hours per day.
“We don’t want any breakdowns that will occur during this period so we are making sure that all our equipment is serviced. We also have 41 boreholes and all of them are fully functional. Assuming that we don’t have any breakdowns, we won’t have any challenges,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Public Works and Planning Committee reported that the local authority has lost over $6 million during the month of June through leakages and water thefts.
In order to determine the amount of the non-revenue water, council installed three bulk water meters in Rujeko and the committee has called on management to expedite the establishment of more metering areas across the city to reduce water losses.
“It was reported that three bulk meters had been installed in Rujeko suburb and readings were taken on the 5th of July 2022 for the three District Metering Areas (DMA).
Non-revenue water for Rujeko suburb was 18,53 percent and the loss in monetary terms amounted to $6 947 215.77. The committee noted the need to procure more bulk water meters for installation to create DMAs across the city therefore enabling council to pinpoint areas experiencing pipe leakages, water thefts. Management was tasked to expedite the procurement of bulk water meters,” reads part of the report.
