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Nqobile Tshili, Sunday News Correspondent
ZANU-PF Bulawayo Province will be taking the city’s water crisis agenda to the Annual National People’s Conference in Masvingo.
The water crisis and unemployment issue will also be part of the party’s provincial agenda after making it to their resolutions.
Zanu-PF Bulawayo provincial chairman Cde Dennis Ndlovu last week said the party was concerned about the levels of poverty in the city.
“We’ve realised that in Bulawayo there are no jobs, factories were closed. We dealt with developmental issues and concluded resolutions on those. The people of Bulawayo don’t have jobs, they are not working, they don’t have food, and they are struggling. Take for instance they’re struggling to get water,” said Cde Ndlovu.
He said with political will Bulawayo’s water crisis should have been a thing of the past.
“While we were in council we drilled boreholes that are all over the city because we knew there was a problem. But when we left council nothing substantial was done to improve the city’s water situation. We left the Zambezi water pipeline programme when the idea of the construction of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam was mooted and was awaiting implementation as a quick solution to the city’s perennial water challenges. But I don’t know what happened along the way. Nobody attended to it and its implementation has looked painful and has been dogged by controversy,” said Cde Ndlovu, a former Bulawayo mayor.
“People sit back and relax until there is a crisis. Instead of preparing and planning for the future they just relax. Bulawayo shouldn’t be having water problems by now. That dam should have been finished, we should be getting water from there. And if we do nothing Bulawayo will be suffering.”
He lamented the lack of zeal for development within the local MPs who he said were not doing enough in pushing the Treasury which had previously allocated funds for the project but did not disburse the amount.
“What are the MPs doing? What are the councillors doing? People are expecting their leadership to act. You see when you’re in Government you don’t go and represent your pockets. You have to represent the people, the people’s problems. MPs and councillors should have taken note of that and tabled it before Parliament,” said Cde Ndlovu.
Cde Ndlovu said the party was likely to come up with tangible solutions to the city’s water problems as they were affecting everyone.
The Minister of Water, Climate and Environment, Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri recently said the Government was pinning hopes on Treasury allocations to fix the city’s water crisis while assuring residents that Bulawayo would not run dry.
The city is enduring a 72-hour water-shedding schedule due to low water levels in the city’s dam with recent rains not contributing much to the Bulawayo water reserves. The 72-hour schedule is hardly adhered to as some of the city’s supply dams have already been decommissioned and if the rains continue in their dodgy pattern the city is likely to suffer the worst water crisis ever.
Fears are, however, that there will be outbreak of diseases such as cholera, typhoid and dysentery that are caused by lack of clean supply of water. — @nqotshili
Online Reporter