Harare and surrounding areas will run dry from tomorrow to Sunday, as the local authority plans to shut down its main pump station, Morton Jaffray Waterworks, to allow for emergency maintenance work at Lake Chivero raw water intake station.
BY XOLISANI NCUBE
“The shutdown will affect water supplies to the whole city. Residents are, by this notice, advised to use available water sparingly,” Harare city spokesperson Michael Chideme said yesterday.
“The shutdown is to allow repair of raw water abstraction periscopes. The adjustments will allow us to draw best quality raw water at any given time.”
Harare residents have, in the past, been subjected to several weekends without water as the local authority has been claiming to be carrying out maintenance works either at its distribution site or at the purification plant.
In 2012, Harare received a $144 million loan facility from China, but only $72m has so far been released by the Asian country, with the money going towards rehabilitating the treatment plant.
With a growing population and an aged infrastructure which constantly fails, residents have been forced by circumstances to use unhygienic water sources to keep their families going and in the process, exposing themselves to cholera.
The city produces 800 megalitres a day against a demand of 1 200 megalitres at a time the municipality has to deal with leakages due to old infrastructure.
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Minutes from a recent finance committee meeting show that the local authority, despite the injection of $72m from China, has failed to provide supplies to the entire population.
“The audit manager reported that the audit had seen a decline in water revenue during the period January 2016 to June 2016. A negative variance of $24 150 627 had been recorded during the period under review,” part of the minutes read.
