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Deputy
Minister's call on ZINWA a shame
Combined Harare
Residents Association (CHRA)
October 02, 2008
The Combined Harare Residents
Association would like to reject and dismiss the deputy minister
of Water and Infrastructural Development, Engineer Muzembi call's
on ZINWA to "involve other stakeholders" in water management.
This call comes from a man who is in the defacto cabinet which disregarded
the legislature and the very same stakeholders whose inclusion he
is now calling for. The state media has for the past months tried
to pacify local government through half-hearted and stage managed
castigation of ZINWA. This was being done to simply lobby for a
buy-in into ZINWA by the local authorities. This will be tantamount
to endorsing the mess which has claimed so many lives, thus being
accomplices to this carnage.
The call comes
when tertiary institutions of The University
of Zimbabwe's caliber and centrality in national human
resource development can not open because of the water crisis and
health hazard unfolding in the city. The call comes at an unfortunate
time when 14 lives have been lost to cholera in Chitungwiza and
when scores of people are suffering form diarrhoea, dysentery and
other related diseases. Some of the city's areas like Mabvuku
and Tafara have gone for more than a year without water. Other affected
areas include Hatfield, Msasa Park, Mandara, Glen Lorne and Chisipite.
ZINWA forcefully took
over water and sewer management from the City of Harare in 2007
without consultation with residents thus usurping the council's
borrowing powers and dealing a heavy blow to its revenue base reducing
it by 40%. Ever since it took over, ZINWA has failed to provide
clean and adequate water but continued to defraud residents through
its bill estimates. This has resulted in residents failing to realize
value for their money since ZINWA does not have the financial and
technical expertise, let alone the residents` blessing to run the
city's water and sewer system.
The Combined Harare Association
reiterates its position that water and sewer management, as all
other local government processes, is and should, remain the responsibility
of the local authority and the residents who are the rightful custodians
of the city and all its asserts. The ZINWA takeover was unwarranted,
unprocedural and has resulted in the untold suffering and deaths
of residents and continues to pose a threat to their health. The
Deputy Minister's call serves as an admission of failure and
guilt and further buttresses the point that ZINWA should return
the water and sewer management to the City of Harare who will in
turn engage ZINWA and other stakeholders as and when deemed necessary.
Visit the CHRA
fact
sheet
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