Chronicle Editor
Patrick Chitumba, [email protected]
THE GWERU City Council (GCC) has increased its daily water supply pumping capacity from 20 to 60 mega litres, bringing daily water supply to even high-lying suburbs.
Minister of State for Midlands Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Cde Owen Ncube, announced this after inspecting road projects in the city centre on Wednesday.
He said the upgrade aligns with President Mnangagwa’s vision of modernisation and industrialisation, enhancing Gweru’s appeal for tourism, trade, and investment.
“I wish to commend the City of Gweru for consistent refuse collection, restoring some traffic lights, and improving water supply from 20 mega litres a day to the current 60 mega litres following the installation of a transformer and pumps purchased through devolution funds,” said Minister Ncube.
He said as the provincial capital, Gweru should exhibit higher levels of service delivery and modern infrastructure.
“I urge the Gweru City Council to beautify all its approaches to the city through greening and attend to buildings, roads, street lighting, and upgrade all traffic islands as fundamental features of an upper-middle-income society envisioned by President Mnangagwa,” said Cde Ncube.
He urged the city fathers to strengthen the provision of quality service desired by residents as part of a broader transformative socio-economic development agenda that leaves no one and no place behind.
“The call to action, ‘No Compromise to Service Delivery’ first stage of interventions to modernise the operations of local authorities towards a 2030 Vision blueprint, launched by President Mnangagwa, should continue to guide council programmes and interventions,” said the minister.
He said the Government supports revenue collection by local authorities as it is the basis upon, which resources are raised to improve service delivery.
“It’s, however, sad to note that my office has been overwhelmed with complaints by residents and the business community indicating a lack of transparency in the sudden increase of rates and levies,” said Ncube.
“I, therefore, urge the council to engage in comprehensive budget consultations and feedback meetings on budget performance and related activities like masterplans and valuation rolls.
“I equally urge residents to attend budget consultations as they are important processes that require their support,” he said.
Meanwhile, some residents outside the city’s boundary in Ridgemont Heights, Northgate, Hertfordshire and some within the boundary have not benefited as they still do not receive water.
GCC director of engineering services, Engineer Masauso Store, said Ridgemont Heights and Hertfordshire, which are under Vungu Rural Council, are supplied through Clonsilla booster pump, where weaker power supplies affect efficient pumping to those areas.
“We, however, have not one day as a city, department or water section shed a portion that is under Vungu because they are (solely) under Vungu.
“The regime of water supply is the same everywhere. The areas that are getting water on Tuesday, if they include portions of Vungu RDC, it means that same day they should expect water,” he said.
GCC finance deputy director, Mr Owen Masimba, said although Hertfordshire, Ridgemont Heights and Raylands and others were outside the city boundary, development permits used to develop the areas were approved by GCC.
He highlighted that Vungu RDC had this year made an about turn and requested that those out-of-boundary residential areas revert to Vungu and start paying tariffs to them instead.
“They are allowed at law because those suburbs are outside Gweru City boundaries, so we could not disagree,” he said.
“We agreed that they go but unfortunately, most of the urban services they want can only be accessed from Gweru and as such we are supposed to charge an economic tariff to make sure we recover the cost.”
Mr Masimba said due to the fact they were no longer sharing costs with the generality of Gweru citizens, they would pay more.
“The costs we charge for within-boundaries and out-of-boundary clients are different, as we need to do a cost recovery, which is commensurate with the distance and numbers involved,” he said.
“The tariffs are different, it is cheaper within and expensive outside.”
Mr Masimba also said that the improvement in pumping capacity was because of several strategies among them rehabilitation and upgrading of the water reticulation system, availing resources for water bursts, procurement of new pumps and enforcing private developers’ contribution to off-site infrastructure, among others.
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