Zimbabweans now charged for borehole water
Your Excellency Sir
You saved the lives of Zimbabweans during the COVID-19 you did everything you could to make sure that Zimbabweans could outlive the pandemic. We now have another crisis that needs your leadership Sir. The freedom fighter went to war to liberate the people of Zimbabwe. Are the people liberated when they live in a country where the citizens are punished for drilling boreholes so that they have access to water. Your excellency Sir you identified the need for people to have access to water and now have launched, “President Launches Borehole Drilling Scheme” which is a very popular scheme with the citizens. ZINWA and other water authorities are on a nationwide program demanding payments for drilled borehole permits and other payments.Your Excellency Sir, I would like to advise you that all the old and new households do not even have a single under pipe that is required to provide water to the residents. Sir this is a national emergency and a national disaster that needs your 100% attention. Our people cannot be punished for a service that should be provided by the local authorities and the government.
Surely, how do you expect the citizens of this country to survive without water and to further punish them by asking for payments in USD is just a travesty. In Zimbabwe, almost half the country lives without access to safe water and they do not have access to proper toilet facilities.Residents of the country have always faced water crisis and there is a possible outbreak of the deadly cholera. It is the role of Zimbabwe’s Central Government and the local council to ensure that every resident has access to clean water and ZINWA is now visiting areas that do have piped water and demanding payments from the residents instead of demanding payments from the local authority that is not providing residents water.
The government of Zimbabwe should scrap these unnecessary water charges and demand that all Zimbabwe’s local authorities provide piped water for its urban and rural residents. And in areas where they do not provide water and the local authorities should not charge residents a penny.
To make matters worse, Your Excellency it is now public knowledge that the citizens of Zimbabwe are now required to licence their generators and are being fined for operating a generator without a licence. This is a country that is struggling to provide electricity and energy to its citizens. Why should we punish our citizens for our institute failures?
Concerned reader
….As “Zimbabweans Must Pay Tax For Operating Generators Above 5kVA”?
Zimbabwe’s current electricity crisis has forced businesses and households to resort to alternative sources of power including generators and solar.
However, according to the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), one needs a licence to operate a generator over 5kVA.
EMA has since ordered a Harare resident to pay a fine of ZWL$100 000 for illegally operating “an air polluting appliance (generator) without a licence”.
EMA said the fixed penalty of (ZWL$100 000), is prescribed in terms of Section 64 of the Environmental Management Authority Act.
The authority warned the offender that failure to pay the fixed environmental penalty within 7 days by 20 February 2023, will result in an application by EMA for a warrant of their arrest.
Commenting on the development, the Project Director – Southern Africa at International Crisis Group, Piers Pigou, said this is about income generation and has nothing to do with environmental considerations. He said:
Imagine, you must now pay tax to operate a generator in Zimbabwe over 5kva. Yet, you have to do so because the govt can’t supply power.
This is the “logic’ of a governance culture that is clearly not fit for purpose.
Poor Zimbabweans also pay a fee for the radio in their cars.
… Govt fails to deliver a basic service, citizens are forced to make a plan & then govt exploits this with a licensing levy.
This is about income generation and has nothing to do with environmental considerations
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