Online Reporter
Raymond Jaravaza, [email protected]
THE City of Bulawayo says it will not consider reviewing the water shedding regime, which lasts up to 130 hours as the city’s supply dams failed to reach even the halfway mark by the end of the 2024/25 rainy season.
With the onset of winter and temperatures steadily dropping, the rainy season has effectively ended.
Bulawayo Mayor, Councillor David Coltart, told councillors that the city’s supply dams are at 49 percent full.
While council may consider reducing water shedding hours, a complete scrapping of the regime is out.
Clr Coltart was responding to concerns raised by councillors questioning why the strict water shedding continues despite the country having received reasonable rainfall between December and February.
These discussions are recorded in the latest council minutes, in which councillors voiced residents’ growing concerns over water security.
Councillor Aleck Ndlovu of Ward 25, covering parts of Nketa 8 and Nketa 9, said residents in his ward feared that council might give reasons such as shortages of water purification chemicals and infrastructure issues like burst pipes to justify continued water rationing.
“The rainy season has just ended and the city received fairly good rains so residents are expecting an improvement in water supplies,” he said.
Clr Ndlovu said now that the water levels in the city’s supply dams have improved, residents feared council will have excuses such as shortage of chemicals, broken down pumps or disruption of pumping due to power cuts to justify continued water shedding.
He urged council to adopt strategies to improve water supplies now that the city’s supply dams recorded significant inflows.
In response, Clr Coltart stated that while the water shedding hours may be reviewed, council will not completely suspend water shedding.
In a bid to address water supply challenges in some suburbs, council established water kiosks which are supplied water by water bowsers.
Unfortunately these kiosks are not operational now because all the seven bowsers that are supposed to deliver the water are down.
Clr Ndlovu said council was failing to buy the required spares to repair the bowsers.
“According to the Future Water Supplies and Water Action Committee report dated 20 February 2025, the city owns seven bowsers but all have broken down.
“We understand that the issue of spare parts affects all departments and that hiring plant and equipment is prohibitively expensive for council,” he said.
Ward 17 Councillor, Sikhululekile Moyo, said the situation in her area, which lies on high ground, was dire.
She reported that four water kiosks in the ward have not been serviced for months and that the lack of boreholes in the area had worsened the situation.
“Residents go for long periods without water yet they are still expected to pay their water bills,” said Clr Moyo.
Ward 11 Councillor, Susan Sithole, representing Emakhandeni, New Lobengula and Luveve 5 suburbs said water bowsers were essential especially during funerals.
She said residents were now being forced to buy bulk water from private suppliers which is very expensive.
Ward 5 Councillor, Dumisani Nkomo, urged the council to seriously consider water recycling technologies, citing Windhoek, Namibia, as an example, where sea water is purified through desalination.
A few years ago, Bulawayo residents rejected a proposal by the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to purify water from the heavily polluted Khami Dam, which was decommissioned in 1988.
The proposed project, which would have cost around US$26 million, aimed to add 12 megalitres of water per day to the city’s supplies.
Speaking in an interview recently, Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura) chairperson, Mr Winos Dube, said the council must urgently prioritise fixing the grounded bowsers.
“We read in the newspapers that council plans to send a delegation to South Africa on a fully funded trip to learn about water solutions yet there is no money to fix the water bowsers, which are critically important to residents,” said Mr Dube.
