Council to get tough on water polluters

discharge.
In terms of the Water Act (Chapter 20:24), the national water authority is empowered to issue permits authorising the discharge of certain effluent and to impose the prescribed fees for such disposal.
According to Harare Town Clerk Dr Tendai Mahachi, extensive industrial discharge in the city’s water sources was increasing the cost of water treatment significantly and damaging water and sewer pipelines.
“Over US$2 million is required monthly for water treatment and this could be cut by half if we lower pollution levels, mostly industrial effluent,” he said.
He said this while updating participants on the council’s performance during a workshop on the socio-economic impact of utilities’ charges in Vumba last week.
The United Nations Children’s Fund has been supplying water treatment chemicals for the past few years but this is scheduled to end in December 2012.
Dr Mahachi also said the local authority’s coffers were suffering since more than half of the city’s water output was not paid for, while its privatised subsidiary, Rufaro Marketing, has not been contributing anything.
The council’s revenue shortfalls could mean that the local authority might well be funding its capital expenditure programmes through rates.
This may be contributing to high tariff charges being imposed on residents. Utility services are said to be very high and this was reflected in a situation where the utilities Consumer Price Index (CPI) tended to remain above overall CPI.
For instance, in April last year, the utilities CPI was 22,1 percent higher than overall CPI, a trend that was also reflected in November when the index increased to 24,5 percent above overall CPI.
Dr Mahachi said the city’s poor infrastructure was the main reason behind inefficiency in water supplies.
“The city’s inefficiencies in supplying water are inherent in the state of infrastructure. We are losing around 33 percent of raw water due to deteriorating pipes.
“There is therefore need to invest in infrastructure, hence we have had to borrow. We have around US$10 million that we received from the African Development Bank, and the Eximbank of China has approved a US$144 million loan for us, which will go a long way in stabilising the water situation.
Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce economist Mr Kipson Gundani, however, questioned the local authority’s capacity to repay the loans, especially in view of its revenue deficits.
Dr Machachi said council had no option but to spruce up the critical infrastructure as a long-term strategy.
The city currently produces 630 megalitres of treated water a day, while total capacity available stands at 700 megalitres a day. Harare, however, has a demand of 1 400 megalitres daily.
Stakeholders at the workshop recommended that the country’s utilities providers should be fully re-capitalised by the Government, but this is unlikely in the foreseeable future in view of the long-drawn recovery of the economy that is constraining the State’s capacity to fund public projects.