Govt, Harare in joint effort to end water woes

Yeukai Karengezeka Municipal Correspondent

Government through the ministries of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing; and Lands, Agriculture, Water, Climate and Rural Resettlement together with Harare City Council have agreed on a model that will be used for the construction of dams, a senior Government official has said.

The development comes at a time when the city is facing a serious water crisis that led to the recent shutdown of Morton Jaffray treatment plant before Government intervened to alleviate the situation.

Government has been actively looking into the construction of Kunzvi, Muda and Musami dams that can serve the whole city and surrounding areas.

In an interview on the sidelines of Splash Paints and Plastic Company tour in Harare, Minister July Moyo said Government was making progress in plans to construct more dams.

He said the model had the potential to lure investors to come on board and work on the dam projects.

“We have been working with the city for both long-term and short-term solutions in addressing the water crisis in Harare.

“The long-term plan includes Kunzvi Dam and we have put a structure, a model which the city has signed on, the Ministry of Lands, Water, Climate and Agriculture has also signed on and my ministry has also signed on where we want to take it as a continual from building the dam to the plant and to the reticulation up and to the households.

“We think that with that type of model, investors will come in and so Government is pushing for it,” he said.

Minister Moyo said the Government was also working on enhancing Morton Jaffray’s waterworks’ capacity.

“Right now, we have Morton Jaffray; we went halfway with the Chinese loan which was US$144 million and we were only able to use US$72 million and there were problems that stopped that process and we are trying to revive it,” he said.

Minister Moyo also said the Ministry of Finance was going to float an infrastructure bond issued by Government to raise funds for infrastructure development.

“The Minister of Finance has said they are going to float an infrastructure bond and this bond will target water, sewerage, roads, electricity and all the other infrastructure which includes equipment even for refuse collection.

“So this is the vision that we have because we want to attract and assist businesses but we can’t do it without infrastructure.”