The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has laid blame of the prevailing water crisis in the city on the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) accusing the parastatal of dragging its feet on some key water supply projects that can save the country’s second capital from going dry completely.
The local authority on Thursday announced that as from tomorrow residents would now be getting water supplies twice a week as the available water in their supply dams continues to dwindle. The city’s dams are 31 percent full.
The council is awaiting Government’s intervention after the local authority wrote to the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Settlement requesting that the city be declared a water shortage area.
According to a letter written to the ministry, the local authority fingered Zinwa for the problems being faced in the city.
Council accuse Zinwa of not showing commitment in the completion of the Epping Forest borehole expansion project, which is one of the short-term water solutions identified to ease water shortages in the city.
“Council was expecting to commission the Epping Forest project in the year 2018 to meet part of the water demand gap of 25 megalitres a day. However, some misunderstanding between Zinwa and council have hampered works. Progress, overall, currently stands at 60 percent.
Engagements with Zinwa indicate their intention to vary the scope of the works without much commitment to complete the contract, putting pressure on the city, whose supply dams are now at critical level,” reads part of the letter.
The local authority also requested the taking over of ground water resources, noting that this was the only way the city could not only manage its water supplies but also be in a position to have a navigating role in the solutions to the city’s perennial water shortages.
“In order to manage the declining water resources, council has been on water shedding, since February 2019 to date, an exercise that continues to strain our technical teams, resource materials and the consumers at large.
“It is from such reports and other background information, that we seek the ministry’s intervention in order to speed up the completion of the works by engaging Zinwa. Secondly; council is proposing to take over the running of the ground-water resource using a Service Level Agreement, the dam levels have fallen below normal, and are failing to meet current city water demand,” reads the letter.
The local authority used the basis to request that the city be declared a water shortage area as guided by the Water Act.
According to part five, Section 61 of the Water Act; “If the Minister, acting on the recommendation of the National Water Authority and in consultation with the catchment council concerned, is of the opinion that — (a) the flow of water in any public stream has at any time ceased or if the flow of water or the level of water in the storage works has fallen or is likely to fall below the level of the usual flow or acceptable level of storage works in the public stream; or
“(b) it appears that the abstraction of water from boreholes and wells in any area is likely to diminish unduly the ground water resources in the area or affect adversely the flow of any surface water in any public stream; he may, by notice in the Gazette, declare any area specified in the notice to be a water shortage area for such period, not exceeding 12 months, as may be specified in the notice.”
However, Zinwa spokesperson Mrs Marjorie Munyonga reiterated the authority’s commitment to providing a solution to Bulawayo’s water challenges. She said the city’s water shortages were not peculiar as a number of authorities in the country were facing similar challenges.
“Zinwa being the Government’s lead water resources management agency is constantly in touch with BCC to help bring on board interventions that may help alleviate the current water challenges being faced in the country’s second capital. Bulawayo’s water challenges have been largely occasioned by the generally poor rains that the country in general experienced this year.
“This kind of collaboration is not peculiar to Bulawayo as Zinwa is currently working with local authorities in different cities to help come up with solutions to water challenges. Efforts are being made to keep supplies from Mtshabezi and Nyamandlovu aquifer coming,” said Mrs Munyonga.
She said Zinwa remained committed to the pursuit of long-term solutions for Bulawayo as evidenced by the current construction of Gwayi-Shangani Dam.
