BULAWAYO motorists and pedestrians have blasted the local authority for poor maintenance of drainage systems within the city centre, exposing them to flooding.
By LINDA CHINOBVA
Speaking to Southern Eye in separate interviews yesterday, residents called on the city council to urgently address the city’s water drainage system to avoid recurrence of flash floods.
Sibonginkosi Dube, a pedestrian, said the flash floods exposed residents to water-borne diseases.
“The flash floods in the city are exposing us to water-borne diseases because whenever it rains the city gets flooded and we are forced to walk in dirty water because it does not flow into drainages,” he said.
“There has been an outbreak of typhoid in the country and if the local authority is not careful, there may be an outbreak in the city.”
Washington Shiri, a motorist, also said the flash flooding in the city was damaging their cars.
“The city council has failed to patch potholes in the city, but surely they should not fail to unblock the drainages because our tyres are being cut by the potholes that will be covered by the floods,” he said.
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Councillor Mlandu Ncube said the local authority was working tirelessly to unclog and repair drainage systems within the city centre.
“I can tell you that the city council has been working tirelessly from December last year to unblock all blocked drainages in the CBD,” he said.
“The city council has been using pressure machines to unblock almost all the drainages within the city centre, but our greatest challenge is that we have some residents, who are littering, resulting in the blocked drainages.
“The city has been receiving high volumes of rain and, because, we still have people who fail to drop litter in designated bins, we are fighting a losing battle as far as unblocking the drainages is concerned”
Ncube urged members of the public to avoid littering and clogging the drainage system.
He said the local authority had deployed a team of six people from the road department to work on all blocked drainages within the city centre.
