The Masvingo City Council and the province’s governor, Titus Maluleke, are on a collision course after it emerged that the resident minister was reportedly illegally taking water in bowsers from the local authority to his official residence about 10 kilometres south of the city.
Maluleke resides at Clipsham Farm which is under the jurisdiction of the Masvingo Rural District Council which is supposed to provide him with water.
The governor’s official residence was grabbed from a white former commercial farmer Norman Richards at the height of farm invasions.
Richards had drilled boreholes on his property in addition to the water which was being provided by the rural district council.
Sources within the Masvingo City Council last week said the local authority was against the governor drawing water from the town council and taking it to his residence without the approval of the local authority.
“We need to move with speed and stop this practice,” said a councillor who refused to be named.
“Anyone who wants to fetch water from our taps and take it somewhere needs to have council approval and we are just following that procedure.”
Masvingo mayor Alderman Femias Chakabuda could neither confirm nor deny the allegations but said council would soon investigate the issue.
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“The governor might have struck a deal with a property owner from where he is drawing water,” said Chakabuda.
“If this is the case, then we have no option but to bill that property owner,” the mayor said. “Where one is just illegally drawing water from us without council approval then it has to be investigated and proper action taken.”
Although Maluleke could not be reached for comment, a worker at his official residence yesterday confirmed that water was being brought to the house in bowsers.
“We get water here from bowsers but I do not know where it will be coming from,” said the worker who refused to be named.
“The boreholes here are not functioning hence we are getting our water from other sources brought here in bowsers,” added the worker.
