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has recommended that sewage treatment plants in Harare be declared a national disaster to allow for urgent resource mobilisation to rehabilitate them.
This comes at a time when Harare has recorded over 4 000 typhoid cases since October last year while 906 people have been treated for dysentery in the past two months.
Water Resources, Management and Development Minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo yesterday said the continued discharge of raw sewage into Harare and its satellite towns’ water sources poses danger of another outbreak of water borne diseases.
Minister Sipepa Nkomo said this at a water summit to address water problems for Harare Metropolitan Province.
“The National Action Committee has recommended to Government that the state of our sewage treatment plants be declared a national disaster so that resources can be mobilised by the relevant body which deals with national disasters to put back into operation all our sewage treatment plants.
“Pollution has led to high water costs as more chemicals are used (to treat the water),” he said. Added Minister Sipepa Nkomo: “The biggest threat to our water sources in Harare and its satellite towns is the discharge of untreated sewage from the non-functional sewage treatment plants.”
He said Harare has enough supplies of raw water with the challenge being purification and supply to residents.
Harare’s water reticulation system was designed for 367 000 people, but is now servicing over 3 million people.
The cholera outbreak claimed over 4 000 people countrywide owing to lack of access to safe drinking water.
The outbreak was concentrated in Harare where most high-density suburbs went for months without water, forcing them to fetch water from unprotected wells.
The Ministry of Local Government, Rural and Urban Development, through the Civil Protection Department, co-ordinates disaster management, as enshrined in the Civil Protection Act of 1989
Harare has five sewage treatment plants — Firle, Crowborough, Hatcliffe, Marlborough and Donnybrook — but they are all mal-functioning and require an estimated US$10 million for rehabilitation.
In his keynote address, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said there has been little investment in water treatment in most parts of the country in the past 30 years.
“It pains me to note that there has been little or no significant investment in water and wastewater infrastructure over the past 30 years,” said PM Tsvangirai.
“The existing water and wastewater infrastructure countrywide is beyond its design life. No significant upgrade and rehabilitation has been done to improve the quality of water and to optimise water supply and sewage treatment.
“This has compromised the provision of safe water to the people, mostly to Harare residents.”
PM Tsvangirai said it was necessary that Government, civil society and the private sector co-operate to address problems affecting water supply in the country.
Government has since provided US$17 million to rehabilitate Harare’s water and sewer reticulation systems.
The city is also expected to benefit from the US$29,65 million Urban Water Supply and Sanitation Programme fund from the African Development Bank.
Government has also provided US$50 million to combat the spread of typhoid in Harare following an outbreak last year.
Online Reporter