Japan to assist Harare on water

Blessings Chidakwa and Elizabeth Andreya
JAPAN has pledged to assist Harare City Council in solving its water and sanitation challenges, as well as twinning it with a metropolitan province in the Asian country.

Speaking during a courtesy call on Harare Metropolitan Minister of State Oliver Chidawu’s offices on Friday, Japanese Ambassador to Zimbabwe Mr Toshiyuki Iwado said his country would try to proffer lasting solutions to Harare’s water and sewer challenges.

“This is actually my courtesy call on the Honourable Minister Chidawu and we were talking about co-operation between Japan and Zimbabwe, as well as interlinking Harare Metropolitan province with a province in Japan,” he said.

“Of course, there are serious needs on water and sanitation in Zimbabwe and we are keen on supporting this country’s development. We have other projects in this country, we just finished the Nyakomba irrigation project, which is being implemented courtesy of a US$18 million funding facility extended by Japan International Cooperation Agency and we are looking forward to the handover ceremony for the project,” he said

Ambassador Iwado said his country was keen on providing technical assistance and support to young people working in various sectors.

Minister Chidawu said Japan was Zimbabwe’s all-weather friend.
“We have discussed opportunities for cooperation between our countries, businesses in Harare and Japan, which we can benefit from,” he said. “We also spoke about the challenges we have in terms of water and sanitation.

“They are quite excited about that as they have previously participated and supported a project in Chitungwiza, but there are concerns that it hasn’t taken off as they had planned, but we promised that we would attend to that and then give them feedback when we have spoken with the local authority.

“We also encouraged them to look at areas where we can cooperate so that we can improve our situation in Zimbabwe.”

Japan recently extended a $21 million grant aid to Zimbabwe for the improvement of steep gradients on the Makuti-Chirundu section of the North-South Corridor.