Chronicle Editor
Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
SOME residents in Beitbridge have gone for several weeks without water after the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) cut supplies over a nearly $300 million debt.
The Beitbridge Municipality owe Zinwa $294 million which has been outstanding for many years.
The stalemate between council and the water authority has seen residents of the country”s busiest border town going for weeks without the precious liquid.
Council says it is now planning to engage Matabeleland South Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister Abednico Ncube over the issue.
Zinwa and Beitbridge Municipality have a long-standing dispute over water management in the border town. Zinwa sells bulk water to council which then sells treated water to its more than 70 000 residents.
Beitbridge town clerk, Mr Loud Ramakgapola said while they were paying Zinwa $2,5 million weekly, the situation was being worsened by some residents who are not paying for water.
“We continue to buy water from Zinwa despite the fact that between 30 to 40 percent of residents are not paying their water bills.
We are therefore planning to disconnect supplies to about 3 000 defaulters,’ he said.
Mr Ramakgapola said 40 percent of the $2,5 million that council was paying Zinwa per work, was going towards servicing its debt.
He however, said the long term solution was for council to take over the management of water supply from Zinwa. “Zinwa was supposed to hand over water to us in 2019 and that process was not completed.
We are saying Zinwa should just hand over the management of water to us as we will be able to better manage the resource,” said Ramakgapola.
He said Government departments owe the local authority about $43,6 million, commercial defaulters about $78 million, industry $50, 8million and residents $100 million.
Speaking in Parliament recently, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Resettlement Dr Anxious Masuka said Zinwa is owed a total of $2, 4 billion with the municipalities of Gwanda and Beitbridge owing $407 million out of a total $507 million which is owed by 92 local authorities in the country.
Zinwa corporate communications and marketing manager Mrs Marjorie Munyonga said for normal water supplies to resume, Beitbridge Municipality should honour is obligations.
“As of January 31, 2022, the Municipality of Beitbridge owed us $294 million in unpaid bills, a situation that is highly unsustainable and makes water provision to the town extremely difficult and to curb the further growth of this debt, Zinwa reactivated the bulk prepaid water meters for the local authority,” she said.
“The prepaid water meters allow the council to make advance payments for their water requirements.
At the present moment, Zinwa continues to incur average monthly costs in excess of $21 million in electricity, fuel, water treatment chemicals and plant maintenance against $12 million average monthly payments by Beitbridge.”
Mrs Munyonga said with its debt and payment patterns, Beitbridge Municipality is putting Zinwa in a very unenviable position of taking resources from small rural water supply stations such as Tongwe, Shabwe, Ntalale and Lutumba to subsidise the municipality.
She said Zinwa will only hand over the management of water affairs to Beitbridge Municipality once the Government have given clear direction and guidance.
“There was no such guidance in respect of Beitbridge and in any case, Zinwa, being a Government agency cannot defy a Government directive.
Whenever Government desires that Zinwa hands over management of water to any local authority, it gives clear direction and guidance as it did in 2021 with the case of Victoria Falls, which we have since handed over, and the case of Gwanda where Zinwa and the municipality are working closely on the handover modalities,” said Mrs Munyonga.
She said there was a committee, which was set up to assess Beitbridge Municipality’s suitability and preparedness to run the water affairs.
“The committee was supposed to make recommendations to allow or disallow the takeover if Beitbridge met the set conditions for it to run the water management.
The committee met Beitbridge Municipality at the beginning of February in 2019 and Beitbridge Municipality could not agree with the Government set conditions; including the infrastructure that was supposed to be handed over,” said Mrs Munyonga. – @mashnets.
Online Reporter