daniel chigunwe
Ivan Zhakata
Herald Correspondent
Power failure on Monday at the main water treatment and pump station for Harare Metropolitan, the Morton Jaffray water works, has seen vast swathes of the urban area going without water with residents resorting to dubious and even dangerous sources.
While the Government has been systematically drilling boreholes across the metropolitan area, these were designed to supplement piped supplies and cannot cope alone, and while there are several companies that will deliver reasonable quality water to those with large tanks, this service is fairly expensive. Testing has found that a high percentage of the private wells and boreholes are contaminated.
The major fault at Morton Jaffray comes as Harare Metropolitan has to bear the brunt of the present cholera outbreak. Out of the 143 new cholera cases reported on Monday, 74 were reported in Harare and 19 in Chitungwiza, an indication that the capital city cannot afford to go without clean water.
Since the outbreak of cholera, Harare has reported 2 486 cases, making it the second most affected after Manicaland which has reported 3 303 cases and at present infection rates are rapidly overtaking that province.
Harare’s major water treatment plant, Morton Jaffray, has a capacity of about 700 megalitres a day, but it has been running at less than half that capacity for several years after lack of maintenance made a large part of the infrastructure and equipment unusable.
Now most of the city get nothing from Morton Jaffray.
In a statement, council’s head of corporate communications Mr Stanley Gama said the failure to supply water was caused by the failure by ZETDC to restore power at Morton Jaffray.
“Morton Jaffray experienced a power failure at 1430hrs Monday,” said Mr Gama.
“This has affected the pumping of water to residents. ZESA technicians have indicated that there might be a problem on the Parkridge Sub-Station feeder and are working to restore the power.
“Morton Jaffray’s alternative and dedicated Norton feeder line was lost on 17 October because of the storm that hit most parts of the country. ZESA is still to restore the dedicated line.”
The power supply was still down yesterday although there were hopes it could restored by late afternoon.
“Morton Jaffray will resume pumping water to the city as soon as power is restored. In the meantime, we urge residents to use water sparingly,” he said.
Online Reporter