Online Reporter
Diana Nherera-Herald Correspondent
HELCRAW chief executive Mr Brendon Jere says water problems being faced by Harare will soon become a thing of the past.
Speaking at the handover of six double cab and 10 single cab vehicles by Helcraw to City of Harare at Town House yesterday, Mr Jere said the challenges will be dealt with through his company’s private public partnership with the Government and the Harare City Council.
“We have come up with a sustainable, holistic solution to address water challenges that we have,” he said.
“As we work with City of Harare we are going to fix and replace burst pipes to deal with issues of non-revenue water.
“We are going to replace the existing postpaid meters with prepaid meters in areas receiving water.”
“We are going to rehabilitate Morton Jaffray Waterworks to increase its capacity. We are all going to see water coming out in places that haven’t received water. This is in line with our President’s vision that by 2030, every household will receive potable water at its door step.”
Harare mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume said this is one of the flagship PPPs by City of Harare, Government and Helcraw Private Limited.
“The private sector is a critical component of our service delivery tool kit. If we had done the purchasing of these vehicles using public sector methods, we would still be talking about them for two years,” he said.
“We signed these agreements at the beginning of the year, already vehicles are here. We have pipes that have already been bought. We have another private partnership with Geo Pomona, 20 refuse trucks have already been bought, another 20 are coming.
“We had another building, the Mbare markets, the building was built in a record three months. We have another doing the roads on the western and northern side of town, the roads are already old news in that side of town. We had a private partnership for Trabablas, it’s already old news. So this is the future, this is where we are where service delivery is going.”
Harare Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume test drives one of the vehicles.
Clr Mafume thanked President Mnangagwa for assisting and facilitating the agreements and Helcraw for responding to their need.
He also thanked Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe and Harare Metropolitan Province Minister Senator Charles Tawengwa for the support the city is receiving in its endeavours to deliver service to residents.
He said the vehicles are part of service delivery.
“People were complaining about burst pipes, sewer pipes, burst water pipes. Now we will have a rapid response,” he said.
He said the prepaid water meters will ensure reduced non-revenue water which is now sitting at 60 percent.
“It has to come down to 10 percent,” said Clr Mafume.
He said Harare water leaves Morton Jaffray clean then gets contaminated along the way.
“So we want to reduce those incidences of contamination where people will take glasses of brown or black water and say this is the water for Harare,” said Clr Mafume.
He said the bulk of the vehicles will be handed over to the City of Harare by President Mnangagwa at a date to be announced.
