Harare City Council struggling to purify water amid cash crunch; Government owes US$43m unpaid bills

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HARARE City Council desperately needs resources to augment water supply as shortages of clean, portable water persists, a Local Government Parliamentary Portfolio Committee chairperson has said.

Supa Collins Mandiwanzira, last Thursday told the media after touring Morton Jeffrey Water Treatment Plant in Norton that government and residents must pay their bills.

Mandiwanzira’s call comes against the backdrop of a huge debt running into millions of United States dollars owed to the council by both government and residents as well as the private sector.

“Harare City is in desperate need of resources to augment the water works so that they can supply water to the City of Harare.

“Now we need government to pay its bills, we need residents of Harare to pay their bills. There are minus or plus 350 000 water metres in each household in Harare and this means, if each household was paying at least USD10 per month, we will be able to get at least USD3.5 million which the City of Harare would use effectively to upgrade, buy spares and even buy more pumps for the works that we have seen,” Mandiwanzira said.

The former ICT minister said the water situation in Harare was critical, hence, should be a combined effort to deal with.

“We need government to play its part and we need the residents to play their part.

“We also need the City of Harare to be efficient in the use of those resources to ensure that they are not abused and that they are only directed to ensure that there is safe, clean drinking available water,” Mandiwanzira added.

Harare City Council water director, Phakamile Mabhena Moyo told the committee that government alone owes the local authority US$43million.

In an overview of the Greater Harare water situation briefing to the committee, Moyo said the council’s treatment capacity at Morton Jeffrey was 614 mega-litres per day and that at Prince Edward was 90 mega-litres per day, totalling 704 mega-litres a day, serving Harare, Chitungwiza, Norton, Ruwa and other environs going up to Inkomo Barracks.

“Our demand is around 800 mega -litres a day versus a capacity production of 704 mega-litres a day and these are just connected areas.

“We have other areas not connected such as Caledonia, and Southern areas along Masvingo road all the way to Chitungwiza taking our total demand to 1 200 mega-litres.

“With this total production, we are not able to meet our obligations and that is where ZINWA (Zimbabwe National Water Authority) comes in,” Moyo said.

Despite shortages of resources, the council has been put on the spotlight after President Emmerson Mnangagwa recently appointed a Commission of Inquiry chaired by Retired Justice Maphios Cheda to probe operations mainly in its accounting systems and adherence to financial management since 2017.

Moyo told the committee that a government-to-government US$144 000 loan for Harare’s water operations was cancelled at US$72 000 saying reasons for the termination were not given to management.

Moyo bemoaned residents shunning of council water which he said was clean with eight chemicals being used for its purification.

“We purify our water, taste it before pumping it into residential and industrial areas. The water is safe and clean to drink,” he said.