adminplants at Morton Jaffray and Prince Edward.
For the past four months, the city has been reducing water production to cope with low supplies of the chemical after suppliers demanded cash upfront. Harare has not been paying its suppliers.
Fears abound in council that the continued water shortages would result in diseases like cholera.
“The little water we are producing has been dedicated to the western suburbs,” said a source in the council.
The official position from town clerk, Dr Tendai Mahachi, is that plant breakdowns and pipe leaks are the cause of the dry taps.
A number of Harare suburbs have been experiencing water shortages with residents resorting to the traditional condemned shallow wells most of which are contaminated with faecal matter.
Companies have also been dismissing their workers early because of the dangers of working in environments without water.
There is also strong suspicion that some water merchants have a hand in water problems as each time taps dry their business booms.
Dr Mahachi told the full council on Tuesday that water problems were a result of the obsolete equipment.
“The inability of the city to supply the services reliably is attributed to dysfunctional water production and distribution infrastructure,” he said.
But The Herald has it on good authority that the water shortages are solely because the city ran out of aluminum sulphate.
A local supplier was reportedly paid for a consignment that he failed to supply alleging that a truck carrying some machinery to process the chemical burst its tyres on its way from Mozambique.
However, two days later the supplier blamed failure to supply on plant failure.
Town House sources indicated that some suppliers who won the tenders to supply the chemical were yet to receive orders to deliver. Dr Mahachi made a startling admission that his council was only able supply water to 40 percent of Harare Metropolitan province.
“The situation is aggravated by huge water losses (about 65 percent) which are attributed to aged infrastructure and thefts,” he said.
He said continued investment in refurbishment of the plant and equipment at the water works would not improve water delivery.
“Financial analysis show that any further costs incurred in repairing the infrastructure will not result in any material benefit from a cost recovery basis,” he said.
Solutions lie in the replacement of the old equipment and construction of new water sources. Dr Mahachi said the US$144 million from China was now being disbursed.
A team of engineers is set to visit China soon to procure the required plant and equipment. Dr Mahachi said a total of 150km of water pipes would be replaced using part of the Chinese loan.
He said the city would also be divided into water zones led by a zone manager. The duty of the manager would be to attend to local water problems.
On other service delivery issues, Dr Mahachi said each of the city’s 45 wards was now serviced with a refuse truck.
He said the city bought road equipment using the US$2 million motor vehicle licence fees from Zinara.
Online Reporter