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Council steps up water campaign

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Bulawayo City Council on Monday launched water conservation and fundraising initiatives for the duplication of the Insiza pipeline project.

Bulawayo City Council yesterday launched a Blue Monday water conservation campaign and a fundraising initiative for the duplication of the Insiza pipeline project  which requires about $28 million.

Report by Staff Reporters The Blue Monday campaign is meant to increase awareness about water shortages in the city.

  On the other hand, the Insiza project is expected to increase the amount of water pumped into the city’s treatment works from the major supply dams. The city’s water crisis management information and publicity sub-committee introduced the Blue Monday campaign as a model of increasing residents’ awareness of the water crisis.

  As part of the campaign, the sub-committee is asking stakeholders and residentsto wear sky blue clothing to show the importance of water in every organism’s life.

  Officially launching the campaign, Bulawayo mayor Patrick Thaba Moyo said it was meant to increase awareness on water challenges faced by the city.

  The campaign comes at a time when council had introduced a 72-hour water-shedding programme per week in a bid to preserve the little supplies left in the city’s remaining three dams which are now at 41% of their capacity. The mayor said the campaign was targeting residents, schools and the business community.

  “Various efforts have been made by the local authority to mitigate the water supply challenges through the water crisis committee, which are resource mobilisation, monitoring consumption and compliance, advocacy and the information and publicity clusters,” Moyo said.

  He said as part of efforts to fundraise for the Insiza pipeline, the crisis committee was selling Blue Monday promotional material such as T-shirts and other goods, which stakeholders were being urged to buy. Water Resources, Management and Development minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo recently told the committee that government had no plans for the duplication of the Insiza pipeline because of financial constraints. On completion, the project is expected to result in the supply of 25 megalitres of water per day to the city.

 

Bulawayo now relies on Lower Ncema, Insiza and Inyankuni   dams after two others were decommissioned early this year.

  Moyo said if it did not rain by end of this year, two more dams would be decommissioned.

  The committee has roped in the mayor,  beauty queen Bongani Dlakama, Highlanders Football Club and 3 Kings Seqa Amabhilidi kwaito music group as its goodwill ambassadors to influence the culture of conserving water.

  Meanwhile, civic society groups in Bulawayo yesterday said they agreed with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s claims that the water crisis affecting the city was deliberately created by the Zanu PF regime to marginalise Matabeleland.

  On Saturday, Tsvangirai told MDC-T supporters in the city that perennial water shortages were a creation of Zanu PF.

  Thabani Nyoni, the Bulawayo Agenda executive director, said: “We want the country to have a devolved system of governance,  the centralised system has affected us as Matabeleland.

  “Zanu PF did not plan ahead for the Matabeleland region, that is why we are experiencing such difficulties.”

  Zimbabwe Christian Alliance director Useni Sibanda concurred, saying there was always a plan to deliberately neglect the region not only in water supply, but also in roads, industries and basic infrastructure. Sibanda said the collapse of Bulawayo’s industrial base was due to a “silent Zanu PF policy” crafted to marginalise Matabeleland. Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association co-ordinator Rodrick Fayayo said: “The government has failed to plan ahead; they have failed to build dams for Bulawayo yet they knew that the population was growing.

  “We cannot blame the rains, if they had best interest for the region they would have planned ahead. So the Prime Minister is right to say it’s a Zanu PF policy to marginalise the region.”

  Effie Ncube, the director of Matabeleland Constitution Reform Agenda, urged Tsvangirai  to confront his coalition partners and push them to urgently address Bulawayo’s water crisis.