Chronicle Editor
Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Reporter
A MUSLIM organisation has partnered Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to rehabilitate boreholes in the city to alleviate water challenges facing residents.
BCC has been forced to impose temporary water shedding programmes in some parts of the city as it struggles to deliver adequate water to the residents due to power cuts.
The situation is however, not as critical as last year but some suburbs are going for days without water.
This has seen a United Kingdom-based Muslim organisation, City Centre Dawah (CCD) working with the local authority to rehabilitate some boreholes under its Water for Africa initiative.
The organisation’s target is to rehabilitate eight boreholes in the city’s western suburbs including Pumula South, Cowdray Park and Nkulumane.
Yesterday, it was rehabilitating a borehole near Kampion shops in Pumula South.
The organisation’s representative in Bulawayo Sheikh Ismail Abu said their vision is to ensure that everyone has access to clean water.
“We want everyone to get clean water. We started operating in Bulawayo last year when the city was having a serious water crisis. We continue to rehabilitate boreholes as part of our efforts to counter some of the problems that we experienced last year when water shortages affected some residents to an extent that we lost lives as people drank contaminated water,” said Sheikh Abu.
He said after Bulawayo, they intend to move to other areas in Matabeleland facing water shortages.
He said some boreholes they are rehabilitating provide water to community gardens, thereby enhancing food security.
“Fixing these boreholes guarantees residents with pieces of land at the gardens adequate water for their vegetables.
In this Water for Africa project, we have since last year rehabilitated more than 40 boreholes,” he said.
Beneficiaries of the Pumula South borehole said fixing the water source would improve access to the precious liquid in the area.
Mrs Oliver Ngwenya from the suburb said at times they go for days without water so the borehole is the alternative.
“We are grateful that this borehole has been fixed. We were having a serious challenge especially to water our vegetables. We are appealing to authorities to drill another borehole because this one is being overwhelmed,” said Mrs Ngwenya.
Another resident, Mrs Jealous Ndlovu, thanked the CCD for working with the local authority in addressing water challenges.
“We were initially surprised when they came here as they are not council employees. They introduced themselves and told us that they work in partnership with the council to fix boreholes. They brought new equipment. We are therefore, grateful for what they have done for us,” said Mrs Ndlovu.
Meanwhile, another CCD representative, Mr Yunusu Kambona said his organisation has also been assisting vulnerable members of the public with food hampers.
“A lot of people have been affected by Covid-19 so we are working in communities to provide food relief. We have been providing grocery hampers to orphanages and child-headed families. We also have programmes where we do cookouts and serve hot meals to members of the public,” he said. — @nqotshili
Bongani Ndlovu