PERENNIAL water challenges continue to haunt Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, once called the Sunshine City.
That the situation is set to get worse, given the city’s ever-increasing population, makes one shudder to imagine what the future holds for the residents of this once great city.
And, despite all the warning lights flashing, the Zanu PF-led government appears uninterested in resolving the crisis and, instead, is blaming the opposition-led Harare City Council for the crisis.
Government’s attitude regarding Harare’s water crisis has left questions on its sincerity about the welfare of residents. If it was concerned, planning on Harare’s future should have started as early as 1980.
However, over the past 43 years, Harare’s major raw water supply dam, Lake Chivero, has turned into one massive sewage reservoir under government’s watch, while the same government has haughtily sat on such water projects as Kunzvi and Muda dams meant to augment the city’s water supplies.
It comes as no surprise that the city’s water supply situation continues to get worse to a point that major health facilities such as Sally Mugabe Central Hospital, formerly Harare Central Hospital, where the precious liquid is most needed, has run dry.
As much as the Zanu PF government would like to pass the buck to council, the local authority cannot work without adequate funding and when it comes to such major issues as water supply, government should, in fact, provide grants to council or source them on behalf of the city.
We have been constantly told that government has not been giving the council its share of the devolution funds which would have been allocated in the national budget.
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Last year, government preferred to buy dozens of fire tenders for local authorities when Harare and Bulawayo have no drinking water. It astounds why government chose to make such an appalling decision.
Government’s culpablility in the capital city’s water woes is glaring. For decades, Harare City Council has struggled to buy enough water purification chemicals while government departments have been among the major defaulters in paying for council services. However, the same defaulter expects the local authority to deliver on its mandate.
Since the local authority’s main source of income is rates, government should lead by example by religiously paying all its dues to council to enable it to deliver on its mandate.
We also implore central government to swiftly move to establish new sources of water for Harare because it is in its best interests that the capital city has adequate supplies.
Playing politics over this issue is detrimental to government’s reputation and a travesty of its commitment to good governance.
