WATCH: Corporate-Council run water and sanitation to stand

CounNqobile Tshili, [email protected]

BULAWAYO City Council will go ahead with the establishment of its water company to ring-fence water revenues while unlocking grants to the tune of US$72 million in the short term to address water and sanitation challenges, town clerk Mr Christopher Dube, said yesterday.

He urged stakeholders to embrace the initiative saying the creation of a water and sanitation corporate organisation is critical in securing funding to address the city’s perennial water challenges.

This comes as council requires millions of dollars to repair its ageing water and sewerage infrastructure, which is consistently bursting due to the ongoing water shedding programme.

Bulawayo is also experiencing acute water shortages due to low water levels at the city’s dams, with vandalism of infrastructure and pipe bursts worsening the situation.

Responding to public outcry, a joint Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and Sustainable Development Goals committee is in the city this week on a three-day fact-finding mission to establish the impact of the water crisis.

The committee yesterday held meetings with Bulawayo Provincial Affairs and Devolution Minister, Judith Ncube, Bulawayo City Council management and councillors before conducting public hearings with residents who expressed frustrations on the water situation.

In an interview yesterday on the sidelines of the parliamentary mission, Mr Dube said the local authority has sought funding from international organisations to address water challenges but lack of reforms in the management of water resources is pushing away investments.

“After the state of disaster declaration by the President, we wrote to all the embassies in Zimbabwe and other United Nations agencies and other partners that we thought would help and they have just indicated that they are prepared to help us through the African Development Bank,” said Mr Dube.

“But then the AfDB is asking for reforms. The reforms talk to how we can handle our water and sanitation issues. First what they talk about is ring-fencing all the monies that are coming for water to be used for water purposes. It should not be used for other purposes unless a justification is made.”

Establishing a water and sanitation department essentially marks the process of ring-fencing the water resources but falls short of the reforms needed to secure funding.

Mr Dube said without ring-fencing the funds, international financiers are not confident that their money will be used for what is purported for.

“What we have done is that we have come up with a programme of action that we are going to form a company, which will be wholly owned by the city and that company is going to be managed differently from what it is now on the ground,” he said.

“We hope to come up with something that is acceptable to the bank (AfDB) to say we have done something that is meaningful towards reforms.

“Then we can attract funding. If these reforms are not done, let’s forget about grant funding and even getting funding from the UN agencies and other co-operating partners because they think if we give them the money for water, we will take that money and use it for other purposes as management, buying ourselves big cars and enjoy ourselves at the expense of water delivery.”

He said once the council establishes a private company to manage the water, it will be able to attract US$72 million in grant funds while opening doors for loans.

“This thing (company) will attract grant funding. We are very likely to get at the beginning about US$72 million grant funding and I’m not talking about borrowing if they are to borrow,” said Mr Dube.

“There will be a corporate body and people can trust the borrowing of a company and in any case, as a council, we can’t borrow, we have to seek borrowing powers,” said Mr Dube.

He allayed fears that the water company will make water expensive saying council is already taking notes from other jurisdictions, which have privatised water in their cities and there is evidence that it brings efficiency in its delivery.

“It’s not going to make water expensive. We will try as much as possible to make water affordable. In all the countries that we have visited, the last being Tanzania, they don’t aim to make a profit but even when they make a surplus it is used to reduce the cost of water,” said Mr Dube.

“I want to assure the people of Bulawayo that this utility we’re talking about is the best thing we can have under the circumstances for the people of Bulawayo. It’s the best thing that we can do in the eyes of the international community and international funders for us to attract international funding.”

He said the council hopes to operationalise the water and sanitation privatisation company in the coming year and noted objections by some residents saying more consultations will be made.

“At the moment, we have separated water and sanitation from other engineering functions like roads and so forth. It’s now water and sanitation and the next step will be now a corporate body, which is wholly owned by the council,” said Mr Dube.

“This programme seeks to bring efficiency and bring the water money back into water projects so that we don’t lose it like we have lost it over 40 years.” — @nqotshili