adminhas said.
The city also wants to fund the upgrade of Warren Control Pump Station,
Up to 40 percent of treated water is being lost through leaks on the 6000-km water pipeline.
Water Resources Development and Management Minister Sipepa Nkomo has promised to impress on treasury to release the funding to Harare. In a recent address to Harare officials and councillors, Minister Nkomo said he was working with Local Government, Rural and Urban Development Minister Ignatius Chombo to persuade Finance Minister Tendai Biti to avail funding for water to Harare.
Addressing the 6th World Water Week in Marseille, France yesterday, Mr Masunda spoke on a number of interventions that would help increase water supply and avert the spread and outbreak of diseases in the city.
Harare was hit by a cholera outbreak in 2008 and 2009 and is currently besieged by a typhoid outbreak that has so far claimed two lives and affected 2 800 people. The outbreaks were linked to inadequate water supply, the use of shallow wells and lack of capacity to collect garbage. He also highlighted the desperate measures that residents have resorted to in order to access water for domestic use.
“Work in the water distribution will entail the renewal of 200km of water distribution pipe work with associated valves and other fittings. There is also need for a dedicated power feeder to the main distribution pump station that supplies water to 90 percent of the city.
“The cost of these works is estimated at US$20 million and will result in water loss reduction by 40 000 cubic metres per day,” he said.
He said water supply in the capital had been compounded by the fact that its two main wastewater plants Firle and Crowborough are down and only managing to treat 54 megalitres of sewer out of the 219 megalitres that flow through them daily.
He said the city’s water infrastructure required phased rehabilitation to be followed by capacity expansion projects.
Mr Masunda narrated a number of key projects that needed to be implemented to ensure uninterrupted water supply, which include the Kunzvi, Musami and Mazowe Dams.
Sewer rehabilitation requires US$15 million in the short term while another US$15 million is needed to upgrade the sludge disposal and water reclamation plant and to do the ancillary works at Morton Jaffray water plant.
In the medium term another US$17 million is required to do further maintenance work at Morton Jaffray and Prince Edward Water Treatment Plants.
“To allow sustained levels of maintenance, Harare Water would require an injection of US$43 million over a period of two to five years,” he said.
Harare covers an area of 890 square kilometers and is home to almost three million people with an annual growth rate f 5.8 percent.
Mr Masunda went to France without Cabinet approval.
Online Reporter