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them of failing to plan on water issues, resulting in the 48-hour water shedding schedule that has been announced by the local authority.
The schedule would be implemented with effect from Friday.
The local authority initially announced a schedule in which residential areas would go for a total of 16 hours without water every week, at the beginning of the month.
The schedule was suspended before implementation as officials sought to put measures in place to cushion residents when shedding started.
Last Friday, council’s general purposes committee — made up of the chairpersons of the local authority’s standing committees — sat and approved a schedule, which would see residential areas going without water for 24 hours, twice a week.
Only the city centre, mines and industrial areas are exempt from shedding.
Supplies would be cut on shedding days from 7.30am to 7.30am the next day.
According to the new schedule, eastern suburbs would have water shedding on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Suburbs like Nkulumane, Emganwini, Nketa, Pumula, Sizinda, Tshabalala, Bellevue, Newton West, Southwold and West Somerton would experience water shedding on Mondays and Thursdays.
Wednesdays and Saturdays have been reserved for Cowdray Park, Luveve, Magwegwe, Njube, Entumbane, Emakhandeni, Barbourfields, Mzilikazi, Nguboyenja, Makokoba, Mpopoma, Lobengula, Mabutweni, Iminyela, Pelandaba and Matshobane.
Esigodini, Imbizo Barracks and all outlying areas would be without water on Mondays and Fridays.
Low water levels at the city’s supply dams have forced council to adopt the measure.
In an interview yesterday, the chairperson of the Bulawayo United Residents Association (Bura), Mr Winos Dube, said the council was taking residents for granted.
“Everyone knows we are in a region prone to water shortages. However, what is irritating is that council officials always seem to start planning about the water issue, whenever we are in a crisis,” said Mr Dube.
He said it was known for more than a decade that the Insiza pipeline needed to be duplicated to augment the city’s water supplies, but council always started talking about it at the last minute, when a crisis is imminent.
About 80 percent of the city’s water is in Insiza Dam.
However, the dam has small pipes that cannot draw enough water to meet the city’s demands, hence the need to lay a parallel pipe to add on to the existing one.
“At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves whether we have the right people in office. On top of that, we hear that council failed to use about $6 million that was allocated for water infrastructure in the National Budget, until it was returned to Treasury. Honestly, residents are being taken for granted,” said Mr Dube.
He said residents were complaining about the initial schedule that had water cuts for eight hours twice every week and the new one induced severe shock.
“We run out of words when such things happen. The people in authority never listen when we make suggestions. One would think it is because they have better ideas but at the end of the day, it turns out that they are blank. Boreholes at Nyamandlovu Aquifer should always be maintained and not repaired in the last minute rush when there is no water,” he said.
Mr Dube said the schedule would bring diseases to the city.
“Imagine, a whole community going without water for 24 hours. Where do they drink or relieve themselves. Even borehole water in the city has not been tested for portability. I think it is high time council started taking people seriously,” he said.
Mr Roderick Fayayo, the coordinator of the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA), said water shedding would expose residents to punitive water penalties.
“Whenever there is water shedding, people keep more water than they actually need because they would not be sure when cuts would occur. When water supplies are restored, they throw the water away and get fresh water. Residents actually use more water when there is shedding. They exceed water rationing limits and face penalties,” said Mr Fayayo.
He said the association appreciated that there was a perennial water shortage in the city and was therefore pushing for a permanent solution.
“Projects like the Mtshabezi-Umzingwane pipeline, the short-term solution and the National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (NMZWP) which is said to be the permanent solution, should be completed to avoid diseases attacking Bulawayo,” he said.
The city’s director of engineering services, Engineer Simela Dube, is on record saying water shedding was a measure of last resort as it led to system overload and increased the frequency of burst pipes.
The Minister of Finance, Tendai Biti in delivering his Mid-Term Budget Review Statement last week, said the Mtshabezi pipeline would be completed in September.
The Minister of Water Resources, Management and Development, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo said the NMZWP, which has been on the drawing board since 1912, would be completed in three years.
Online Reporter