adminSurely, the once lovely City of Kings and Queens is sitting on a health time bomb, which will soon explode. This is because without water there is no life.
In yesterday’s edition we carried a story, in which, the Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura) leadership expressed concern over the continued disconnection of water supplies of residents.
During the meeting, residents’ association leaders from the city’s 29 wards said the council’s ongoing water disconnection exercise had gone beyond reasonable levels as thousands of people were now living without water.
The residents at the meeting challenged councillors to urgently look into the issue to avert an imminent disaster.
“The massive water disconnections we are seeing these days will soon throw the entire city into a health crisis. This is a serious problem and our councillors should be very careful of where this situation is leading us,” said a resident at the meeting.
With such a situation on the ground then there is an urgent need to come up with ways to save the beautiful city of Bulawayo. The threat of diseases under such conditions cannot be ignored.
We are also wondering where the affected residents are getting water. Our guess is that they are drawing this precious liquid from the boreholes dotted around the city or from benevolent neighbours.
If it is from the boreholes, then we should be a little bit worried because as far we are concerned, water from such facilities has never been tested, so there is a chance that those using it might have health problems.
However, as much as we would want to see all residents having water supplies, we believe a balance should be struck.
The residents should make arrangements on how to pay the council and the local authority should give them a sympathetic ear in their requests.
The residents and other ratepayers should return the favour as paying water bills is part of the council’s way of collecting revenue so that it continues with service delivery.
But as for the councillors they should play their role in assisting their constituents as failure to do so will see them being punished, come election time.
It is now time for the councillors to show their ingenuity in coming up with ways of helping their constituents and at the same time making sure that service delivery does not suffer.
Without water there is no life. That is why the Slovakians have a proverb, which says pure water is the world’s first and foremost drink while someone described water as the only drink for a wise man.
Online Reporter