BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) says it has rehabilitated 111 boreholes since March this year, with non-governmental organisations chipping in to ease water challenges in the city.
Council spokesperson Nesisa Mpofu told Southern Eye that the city has a total of 419 community boreholes.
“The annual target for 2024 in the City of Bulawayo is to repair 120 boreholes,” Mpofu said.
“From January 2024 to present, 111 boreholes have been rehabilitated so far.
“The council is making frantic efforts to fix the remaining nine from 2024’s target list.”
She indicated that various stakeholders that include council employees have assisted the local authority in the borehole rehabilitation project.
“We have our internal BCC staff that contributed to the rehabilitation efforts on 42 boreholes,” Mpofu said.
“We also have Sida, a non-profit agency that assisted in rehabilitating 35 boreholes under a contract running from May 29 to November 29, 2024.
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“Unicef rehabilitated 12 boreholes in June 2024 and a contractor was awarded a tender in September 2024 using internally-generated funds of US$50 000, and is currently rehabilitating 22 boreholes.
“The contract sum for the rehabilitation project has been fully utilised and the project performance is under review.”
In March this year, BCC said it had started rehabilitating malfunctioning boreholes to ease water challenges in the city
The city’s residents are going for several days without water owing to dwindling water levels at the city’s supply dams.
Bulawayo has already decommissioned two dams, Upper Ncema and Mzingwane.
