THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has started fixing malfunctioning boreholes within the city using emergency funds availed by non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Mayor David Coltart told Southern Eye this week that NGOs had come to their rescue by mobilising resources to solve the water crisis in the city.
He said the city had, however, requested that the Zimbabwe National Water Authority fixes boreholes that are outside of Bulawayo.
“This is because they fall outside of our jurisdiction. There are a number of boreholes within the city that are being rehabilitated using the emergency funds from non-profit organisations,” Coltart said.
“I am not sure of the total number of boreholes that the councillors came up with, but this is how it is going to go.”
However, council spokesperson Nesisa Mpofu said of all the malfunctioning boreholes, only a few had been fixed by the NGOs.
“The city has a total of 412 community boreholes and 43 boreholes are non-functional. In the month of June, Unicef working with Africa Ahead as the implementing partner rehabilitated 12 boreholes,” she said.
Mpofu said the remaining number of boreholes was still being examined.
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“Thirty-five more boreholes are being assessed for rehabilitation under the Emergency Water Response to El Niño-induced drought in Bulawayo supported by SIDA-ACF with Africa Ahead being the implementing partner,” she said.
The council recently revealed that 76 of its boreholes around the city had broken down, leaving residents scavenging for water.
The city has rolled out a water-shedding programme due to low supplies.
According to latest full council meeting minutes, the department of water and sanitation indicated that the rehabilitation of the boreholes was being hindered by a shortage of spare parts.
In March this year, the BCC proposed that it would move in to fix all malfunctioning boreholes belonging to residents and other stakeholders as it seeks to lessen the city’s water woes.
This emerged during a meeting organised by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association early this week.
Ward 3 councillor Mxolisi Mahlangu said the local authority wanted to make sure that all boreholes that were not working were fixed.
He said the department of engineering was seized with it.
