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Water crisis
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-33
Monday August 20th 2007 - Sunday August 26th 2007
August 30, 2007

Poor service delivery, characterized by severe water shortages in some urban centres, received some media attention during the week. The government media carried 50 stories on the topic (ZBC [19], government papers [31]), while the private Press and the private electronic media featured eight stories apiece. Although the government media gave extensive coverage to the water problems, especially in Harare and Bulawayo, this did not translate into an informed analysis of the root causes of the disaster. For example, they papered over the government-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa)'s failure to provide a reliable service by either simplistically blaming it on its inheritance of a crumbling water and sewerage infrastructure; or in Bulawayo's case, on the city's refusal to surrender these facilities to the authorities.

The government media's piecemeal coverage of the water crisis was compounded by the fact that most of their reports depended almost exclusively on government views. Consequently, there was no reconciling the official position with the situation on the ground. For example, these media failed to question Zinwa's capacity to supply adequate clean water to towns, particularly when it was reportedly already failing to provide raw bulk water to dams (Spot FM current affairs 23/8 & 24/8). Neither did they relate this inability to previous parliamentary and government reports pointing out the same weaknesses. Instead, the Chronicle in its 12 stories passively amplified government blaming Bulawayo City Council's resistance to hand over water and sewer reticulation to Zinwa as the source of the water crisis in the city while presenting the authorities' intervention as the panacea to the problem.

For example, the paper (23/8) reported Water and Infrastructural Development Minister Munacho Mutezo accusing the Bulawayo council of having "polluted" water in the Khami Dam, adding that government "would not intervene in the water problems facing the city until the local authority allowed Zinwa to take over" However, the next day the paper (24/8) passively reported Mutezo contradicting himself, saying government had always intervened and "continues to intervene whenever there is a water problem in Bulawayo".

It was in this context that it quoted him saying government had allocated resources to Zinwa so it could start work on the Mtshabezi-Mzingwane pipeline project and the rehabilitation of boreholes at the Nyamandlovu Aquifer to alleviate Bulawayo's water problems. Why the resources had been allocated to Zinwa and not the council was not said or explained. And neither did ZTV or Spot FM (23/8, 7am), which carried the same report.

The official media's coverage of the water crisis in Harare followed a similar pattern. They presented government as striving to ease the problem, as exemplified by news of it allocating $100 billion to Zinwa. No attempts were made to examine whether the money was enough and how it would be spent. Instead, The Herald (21/8) glossed over Zinwa's failure to deliver efficient water and sewerage services by carrying an editorial that blamed previous councils for the crisis, saying these had failed to refurbish existing water and sewage works or build new ones. No comment was sought from those it accused. However, to their credit the government media carried five stories highlighting the extent of human suffering caused by the water crisis and the malfunctioning sewerage system. These included follow-ups on the recent outbreak of diarrhoea in urban centres, which they cited council attributing to "persistent sewer blockages and erratic water supplies" (The Herald 20/8 and Spot FM 20/8, 8am).

In addition, the government papers carried several pictures showing people either queuing or fetching water from unprotected water sources. In fact, the Chronicle (22/8) exposed the gravity of the water shortages in Bulawayo when it reported that some people were selling water to desperate residents - some of whom had reportedly gone for two weeks without it - at prices ranging from $25 000-$100 000 per 25 litres.

Despite giving prominence to the suffering of residents caused by the water crisis, the government media still shied away from exploring government's culpability in the matter. This was reflected in their scarce use of alternative voices (Figs 1 and 2) to examine the soundness of government's commitment to addressing the water crisis.

Fig 1 Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in government-controlled Press

The private media, unlike the government ones, failed to give a comprehensive picture of human suffering due to the water crisis. They only carried two reports relating to this: one on a demonstration at the Zinwa district offices by women in Glen Norah in protest against "serious" injuries sustained by a disabled child after falling in sewage (SW Radio Africa 20/8) and another on the sale of water in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe Times 24/8 and The Standard 26/8). But they categorically blamed the water shortages on government's ill-planning. For example, The Standard (26/8) noted that government had failed to establish an alternative water source in Bulawayo since 1976, including failing "to provide funding for the rehabilitation of boreholes at Nyamandlovu Aquifer".

Earlier, the Zimbabwe Independent's columnist Eric Bloch (24/8) expressed similar views, observing that "the Zimbabwean infrastructure for servicing the country's water needs is catastrophically poor" while the Zimbabwe Times (24/8) argued that wherever Zinwa has assumed control, it has been "disastrous". The sourcing patterns of the private electronic media are shown in Figs 3 and 4.

Fig 3: Voice distribution in private Press

Fig. 4 Voice distribution in private electronic media

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