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simply cannot afford the spread of disease, which hits the payers and non-payers alike once it becomes established.
But this does not mean the city council can do nothing, or should do nothing. We notice that the problem has been growing and very little has been done.
And the promise not to disconnect is meaningless to the third of the city that simply does not get water, or gets water very rarely even if they do pay their bills.
Paying bills and receiving nothing is hardly an incentive to keep paying.
There are several things the city can do.
For a start they can insert whatever Bulawayo inserts into the meters of those residents who refuse to obey rationing and which reduces flows to a trickle.
The household continues to get water, by the bucketful. They get enough to stay healthy but have to go through a lot of bother to get that minimal amount.
This would have two swift advantages. First the householder would have an incentive to negotiate at least an acceptable payment plan, simply for the sake of convenience.
Even if they do not fill the buckets under a fast dripping tap those who do at their home will nag more effectively than a city water engineer. Secondly, the city will be supplying only the minimum required for health, giving it more water to supply those who do pay bills; this will also stop the debt rising so fast.
Secondly, they can get employers to deduct from salaries and wages for the overwhelming majority of defaulters.
In many cases there will be no need for an expensive court hearing; if a resident gets an ultimatum plus a suitable form agreeing to a garnishee order, we suspect most residents will fill in the form and return it to the council for action to be taken.
There might have to be a brief court hearing, but this would be little more than a civil magistrate signing the form after checking that everything seemed reasonable.
At the very least, the resident would have to do something, even if only go to the nearest area office to negotiate a payment plan after producing a salary slip so a sensible monthly amount can be agreed.
If the legal machinery for such a process does not exist we are fairly sure that it can be created quickly.
Councils have a lot of power in law, and with the agreement of the Minister responsible for Local Government can do a great deal. We are sure that any rational plan to collect the debts would have that ministerial agreement.
But there is a lot of council complaining about people not paying. In fact, many people do pay for water, sometimes paying a lot for their water. They just do not pay the council.
Companies which truck water around the city and fill the growing number of large tanks in backyards are drilling ever more boreholes and putting in ever more capacity at their premises.
Several companies now have two or three shifts of drivers for their delivery tankers.
Borehole companies and well-diggers are fully employed. You now have to book quite far in advance to hire one.
People with boreholes and wells can quite often sell water to neighbours. The companies that make those large tanks are doing well, in fact business has never been better.
Most of these people buying water would rather pay the council, if only the council was reliable.
There was once a time, like 15 years ago, when people confidently expected to see a flow of water when they turned a tap.
Even during the great drought of the early 1990s, there was water, and at that time the council was finalising the work on doubling city supplies.
The inflation era is long over and the excuses of a lost decade of maintenance and upgrade are no longer impressing.
The supply dams are generally full or nearly full, even in October, so there is no shortage of raw water, such as Bulawayo suffers.
There is no magic solution to the present woes. But forcing people to pay, working flat out on sharing available supplies, replacing leaky pipes, adding more capacity to Mortan Jaffray works, commissioning a third pipeline into the city and generally producing what the council wants people to pay for will all be needed.
Just concentrating on one problem will not produce the water. The council needs to go flat out on a number of fronts to restore the basic amenities.
Online Reporter