adminAuxilia Katongomara Chronicle Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council is losing hundreds of litres of clean water daily as it is grappling with a shortage of plumbers to fix burst water pipes. The local authority is in a crisis as it has only 11 plumbers that have to deal with the city’s 133,000 water connections. Director of engineering services engineer Simela Dube told councillors recently that there was a critical shortage in his department, which was resulting in the delay in attending to burst water pipes reports.
Councillor Clyton Zana had expressed concern at the delays in attending to burst pipes.
“Some reports have not yet been attended to and yet I have been given reference numbers,” said clr Zana.
Eng Dube said the major challenge for his department was shortage of manpower as council was not recruiting.
“Our department is looking at the possibility of involving private contractors. However, the challenge with such contractors is that they by-pass the municipal system resulting in illegal activities,” said Eng Dube.
He said there was urgent need to rehabilitate the water reticulation system.
“In the month of June 2015, the workshops received a total of 963 reports on water related jobs and attended to 684 leaks. Leaks repaired on service lines totalled 635, the leaks were due to the ageing pipes,” said Eng Dube.
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