Harare’s water problems persist

from the city and other authorities that the problem would have been resolved.
The city had blamed low electricity supply to the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant for the poor pumping capa-city in eastern and northern Harare since last Friday.
Zesa Holdings had made assurances that the problem had been rectified, but residents of many high-density suburbs were yesterday resorting to boreholes and unprotected sour-ces for water.
Western suburbs were yesterday also affected with the city saying this new dimension was attributable to problems at the Warren Park Water Control Station.
This saw residents of these suburbs spending the day moving up and down in search of drinkable water.
Zimbabwe experienced a devastating cholera outbreak in 2008, with the 4 000-plus deaths partly attributed to water access issues.
Residents of eastern and northern suburbs complained of little or no water, with some areas reporting their taps had been dry for over a week now.
Council spokesperson Mr Leslie Gwindi said council au-thorities would today tour Warren Park Water Control Station to ascertain the extent of the problem.
“In Warren Park there is a problem and tomorrow (today) we will tour Warren Control to check on the challenges being faced,” said Mr Gwindi.
He said problems in the eastern suburbs were different from those in the west and north of Harare.
In the eastern suburbs, he said, the water shortages were due to a structural problem that required large amounts of money to rectify.
“That is a universal problem. The areas in question are those that once went for years without water and it requires millions of dollars to sort out the problems.
“We do not have that kind of money, but we are trying our best to improve the situation,” said Mr Gwindi.
On Morton Jaffray, Mr Gwindi said electricity had been fully restored.
“Water levels are still low but very soon the situation will normalise. If we lose power for just an hour at the water plant, we will be prejudiced of more than 24 mega-litres of water.
“That amount of water is equivalent to the supply to Mabvuku and Tafara for the whole day.
“So it takes time for the situation to get back to normal after power restoration.”
Mrs Jora of Letombo Park said residents were now fed up with begging for water from those with boreholes.
She said they were getting a raw deal from council despite paying their bills.
“We have been without water for more than a week now and we did not get any explanation on that from council. Bills are always high. Just like any other residents, we are paying for that water. We should get the same treatment with people from other locations,” said Mrs Jora.
Recently, Harare ran dry for the whole weekend after council disconnected supplies for maintenance work at Morton Jaffray.
Residents spent almost three days in long queues at community, private and institutional boreholes.
Residents crisscrossed the capital on foot and in cars, heading mostly to Belvedere where members of the Muslim community are always forthcoming with borehole water.