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Patrick Chitumba Senior Reporter
THE government has approved Bulawayo City Council’s request to borrow $12 million to fund the upgrading of its sewer and water reticulation infrastructure.The municipality intends to borrow the money from banks. The money will be used, among other things, to fund the repair of broken down pipes and the general upgrading of infrastrucure. The project, once complete, will minimise the spillage of raw sewage and other hazardous effluent into the Umguza catchment area.
Part of the money will be spent on fixing broken sewer pipes in Nkulumane and Sauerstown suburbs.
Addressing the media after a tour organised by the Environment Management Agency (EMA) yesterday, BCC senior public relations manager Nesisa Mpofu said the council had been facing operational challenges that saw it failing to attend to broken sewer pipes.
She said manpower shortage and limited resources were adversely affecting council’s efforts to carry out the rehabilitation work.
“The government has allowed us to borrow $12 million to fund the upgrading of water and sewer reticulation systems,” she said.
Mpofu said the city had 10 waste water treatment plants that treated water from companies and all of them needed to be rehabilitated.
She said council had budgeted to collect $10 million as refuse collection fees from residents this year but less than $2 million had been collected by end of June.
Turning to equipment, Mpofu said council had 10 compactors instead of about 25 to service the city and as such refuse could not be collected regularly.
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