Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo, Chronicle Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council has said it needs about a month to work on its water system leading to a review of its 48-hour water shedding schedule.
Since last week, residents have gone for more than 24 hours per week without water due to low capacity at the city’s reservoirs.
Speaking during a full council meeting yesterday, the Mayor of Bulawayo Councillor Solomon Mguni urged residents to be patient and continue conserving water.
Clr Mguni said pipe bursts and erratic power supplies have hindered the conveyance of water from Criterion Water Works reservoir which is at a critical level.
“We are working on the severe and acute water shortages caused by circumstances beyond council’s control. On January 11 there were pipe bursts at Umzingwane and Mtshabezi supply dams and unfortunately the stayaway that followed days later grounded all council operations,” said Clr Mguni.
“On January 19, there were erratic power supply challenges which halted the conveyance of raw and treated water from Ncema station. The power cut also rendered three out of four pumps out of service in Umzingwane.”
According to Clr Mguni during those challenges, the city’s water consumption rose from 142 mega litres (ML) a day to 147ML compared to a combined pumping capacity of 108 ML.
“On February 3 we managed to fix the second pump at Umzingwane which improved the treated water reservoir levels. However, we have a long way to build up levels at the Criterion raw water reservoir which dropped from a possible 7,5 M to 0,93M,” he said.
Clr Mguni said this raw water reservoir requires two weeks continuous uninterrupted power supply for it to achieve about 75 percent full capacity.
He said council has taken steps to procure new control panels it expects to be in place within the next three to four weeks. He said council will continue to update consumers on the water supply situation through various media platforms.
The local authority reviewed upwards its water shedding regime to 48 hours a week from 36 hours as the water situation in the city continued to deteriorate.
Yesterday council met stakeholders to discuss the prevailing crisis amid calls for residents to continue preserving water.
Director for engineering services Engineer Simela Dube said water shedding was necessary to ensure that the city does not run dry given the erratic rainfall patterns against the dropping supply dam levels.
“We realised that residents were consuming more than the 108 ML which we can provide daily. In the past we have noted with such water shedding regimes, residents tend to consume about 80ML daily which saves us a lot of water,” said Eng Dube.
“As we gathered together from different sectors, it is important that we all take part in ensuring that water is conserved in every household, school, college and even our police camps. We are working on modalities to ensure we return to normalcy but at the moment we urge residents to bear with us and save water.”
In a statement, the local authority’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, revealed that the council had to further review the water rationing levels to conserve the available water.
“This is as a result of the low reservoir levels at both the Raw Water and Treated Water Reservoirs at Criterion Water Works, the city’s largest water treatment plant. On the same note, residents are informed that water consumption remains very high despite the shedding programme. In addition, the water rationing allocations have since been reviewed downwards across all water users; therefore, residents are being urged to use water sparingly to avoid water penalties in the near future,” said Mr Dube. — @thamamoe.
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