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Latwell Nyangu
HARARE Mayor, Ian Makone, says they have their focus fully on dealing the vendors menace.
He said they were going to come up with intervention measures to try and deal with the challenge.
“This is going to be a coordinated effort with the vendor organisations and I already had a meeting with one of the leaders of the major stakeholders, the residents’ associations, the Harare Water Trust, and they are all very supportive of the measures,” said Makone.
“But, the first step is education, people have to understand so that it’s not seen as a sjambok descending on them.
“We hope that the response is going to be positive and, if it fails, we will then apply the strong arm of the law.”
He also spoke about the sewer system.
“We have a problem of sand which gets in our pipes and when there is less water those items remain stuck in the sewer system.
“Our sewer system was designed to cater for a population much less than what is there now.
“As a result, there is a lot of clogging up and we are busy unclogging but there are some sections of the sewer system that need to be replaced.”
City Epidemiologist, Dr Michael Vere, also highlighted the challenges facing the sewer system.
“If we don’t address the issue with the sewer, cholera will remain with us but the department of Water Works can give us more details on the sewer system.
“We discovered that during the repair, spoons are blocking sewer pipes.
“In some instances they discovered over 50 kgs of spoons and forks inside the sewer system.
“We are urging residents to avoid putting spoons, zvikorobho, matowels since those items can block the sewer system. Don’t put such items into the sewer system.”
The epicentre of cholera has become Kuwadzana.
“Forty percent of the cholera cases are coming from Kuwadzana and we are urging the residents in that area to be very cautious.
“It is there in Kuwadzana, 3, 4, 6 while other areas like Glen View, Glen Norah and Budiriro are also affected,’”
Online Reporter