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Council unpreparedness on water provision exposed
Harare Residents' Trust (HRT)
July 29, 2012

Without any major investment in the upgrading and maintenance of existing water infrastructure source, the distribution network, and storage facilities, against a backdrop of an ever increasing population, this becomes a mammoth task for any local authority, let alone a bankrupt government fighting internal incoherence, policy inconsistencies and a partisan bureaucracy, unwilling to professionally discharge its mandate. The result of such a scenario is one of stagnant community development and political bickering over all issues that benefit the ordinary people. In spite of all this, the population continues to grow; owing to high poverty levels in the rural areas where desperate villagers are flooding urban centers in search of better economic opportunities and better social living conditions.

Given the state of the economy, there is very little foreign direct investment coming to Zimbabwe in general and Harare in particular. With the increase in the number of people internally relocating to urban centers, themselves experiencing high rates of unemployment, and stagnant economic growth, the threat of overburdening existing water infrastructure becomes a reality, never to be ignored by Central and Local Government. There is a general mismatch between the resources available and the increase in the demand for water services. The resultant effect is overcrowding, deterioration of social services, increased urban poverty, mounting tensions within the communities and intense conflict between major service providers and consumers as rights holders.

Aware of these socio-economic and political dynamics, the expectation from the HRT was that the City of Harare as a collective would have a multi- sectoral and dimensional approach to dealing with the multi-faceted challenges including water supplies, the expansion of water sources, and sewerage reticulation and disease control among other challenges. The 2008 experience with the Cholera outbreak should provide important lessons to city planners and project managers in the department of water, city health, waste management and treasury departments to prepare for all unexpected public health risks, guided by the Regional, Town and Country Planning Act (Chapter 29:13), the Urban Councils' Act (Chapter 29:15), the Environment Management Act (Chapter 20:27) and the Public Health Act (Chapter 15:09).

With this clear approach to planning in public health, the City of Harare, in collaboration with its external and internal stakeholders, would have emerged with a comprehensive strategy and policy to deal with waste and water management, and sewer reticulation. This would entail that there is a public document accessible to residents, the media, city employees and development partners to inform and guide implementers on dealing with public health emergencies like the current typhoid outbreak, driven by water challenges.

The ongoing inaction in dealing with the typhoid outbreak brings to the fore the fact that Zimbabwe as a nation does not have a national water policy, 32 years after independence. Even the City of Harare lacks a clear policy and strategic direction to deal decisively with water delivery to the heterogeneous citizenry, demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that water is not being regarded as a priority economic and social resource at both national and local government level. The absence of a national or local water policy demonstrates that the Cabinet of the Government of Zimbabwe, as the chief policy making body, has no immediate desire or the political will to address water challenges bedevilling the country. This is the major reason why politicians become so concerned and deliver partisan and appeasement messages during election time, promising disgruntled communities that their dams would be completed and water shortages would be a thing of the past. According to the Third Draft of the National Water Policy, presented to national stakeholders by the Ministry of Water Resources Development and Management on Wednesday 25 July 2012 in Harare at the Rainbow Towers, Zimbabwe has signed a number of international, regional and national guiding principles and commitments in relation to water. Among them are 'the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights General Comment Number 15 of 2002 on the Human right to Water, the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, Number 7, target 7c, which aims to halve by 2015 'the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation'.

The HRT, guided by its Objective Number Four which clearly state that the organisation shall 'closely monitor and audit the performance of service providers so that they deliver quality and affordable services to the citizenry'; several communities within Harare have experienced acute shortages and erratic supplies of water.

In Glen Norah B, only two of the seven boreholes drilled by the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) are functional, the rest have broken down. City water is available at night most of the times. In the Avenues area there are erratic supplies particularly in areas around the Avenues Clinic and when it is available it has very low pressure. This portrays a serious lack of commitment and political will by both the central and local government to initiate and sustain investment in water infrastructure provided by humanitarian agencies and development partners.

Areas on high ground such as Mabvuku, Tafara and other areas experience acute water shortages. In the Grange, Borrowdale, Glen Lorne, among other northern suburbs, residents are billed by the Harare City Council yet they do not receive any city water, relying on boreholes and buying from water companies. This chaotic billing system shows that city fathers enjoy reaping off residents of their money for services which they seldom provide. With this prevailing environment there is need for the city fathers to take heed of the sentiments of the residents and come up with a comprehensive and practical policy framework to address the water situation within and without the borders of the City of Harare.

The HRT therefore strongly calls for Central Government to come up with a practical water policy, and desist from this retrogressive attitude which the government has portrayed so far. The Government of Zimbabwe undertook a major Water Sector Reform Programme, the First Phase being carried out from 1994 to 2002, and the Second Phase started in 2009 and is reportedly in progress. The first phase, undertaken with financial and technical assistance from the Government of Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, resulted in the reformulation of the Water Resources management Strategy which included an annexed National Water Policy which was never formally passed by the Cabinet.

The government should come up with a comprehensive water policy that encompasses participatory methodologies in order to address the water challenges bedeviling the country, and the City of Harare and Bulawayo in particular. The water woes facing the country indeed need an attitude overhaul and a multi-sectoral approach in order to enhance the improvement of the livelihood of the people and improved public health.

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