adminThupeyo Muleya Beitbridge Bureau
THE Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) has introduced a tight water rationing programme for Beitbridge as a way of forcing the town council to pay an $11million debt that has been outstanding since 2009.
The water authority started reducing water supplies to the town on Monday last week after the local authority failed to pay the full $70,000 the two parties agreed would be paid on a monthly basis towards settling the debt.
As a result, serious water shortages have hit the town as Zinwa is now pumping 2,000 cubic metres of water per day, down from the usual 6,000 cubic metres.
This has worsened the town’s water woes. Beitbridge requires a total of 15,000 cubic metres of water per day.
Zinwa’s Umzingwane Catchment area manager, Stanley Nazombe, has since written a letter to Beitbridge town council informing them about the water rationing programme.
“Zinwa indicated during the month of July, 2015, that it was finding it difficult to execute its mandate of providing treated water without a commensurate remittance of funds from the local authority,” he said.
“It then therefore requested payments of at least $70,000.00 per month to enable this to occur. Admittedly this was still below the invoice value but was meant to be a temporary arrangement whilst your local authority put in place strategies to collect and remit the invoice value.”
According to Nazombe, the local authority paid $50,000 against the required $70,000 as agreed.
“This unfortunately is insufficient to enable continuous and uninterrupted supply of treated water in the month of November. In our meeting last week, it was intimated to yourselves, that the authority would therefore find it difficult to assure you of continuous supply unless the full payment of $70,000.00 was made,” added Nazombe.
“Zinwa, therefore formally informs the local authority that it will be restricting supplies in line with the provided resources for the month of November, unless other suitable arrangements are agreed upon.”
Beitbridge town secretary, Loud Ramakgapola, said they were engaging Zinwa over the issue. “We’re shocked that after having agreed that we will meet our obligation, Zinwa has decided to reduce water supplies to the town. They should at least give us water which is in tandem with the money we’ve paid so far rather than resorting to drastic measures,” he said.
Ramakgapola said efforts were underway to pay the outstanding money to Zinwa.
He said the situation was also worsened by non-payment of water bills by residents, though they were continually engaging them to pay up.
The local authority is owed $3, 5 million by residents and says it owes Zinwa $7,6million rather than the said $11 million.
Online Reporter