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Harare residents resort to water harvesting
Community Radio Harare (CORAH)
January 16, 2013
The heavy rains
being received in Harare have come as a blessing as many residents
are now harvesting the water for drinking, cooking and other domestic
purposes. This comes as most suburbs in Harare are facing serious
tape water shortages with the city council failing to supply the
precious liquid.
The heavy rains
being received in Harare have come as a blessing as many residents
are now harvesting the water for drinking, cooking and other domestic
purposes. This comes as most suburbs in Harare are facing serious
tape water shortages with the city council failing to supply the
precious liquid.
Residents consider
harvested water safer to drink than council water which residents
are encouraged to boil before consumption.
Linda Dube who
resides in Kambuzuma Section 3, thanks God for the new source of
clean drinking water. "We are putting buckets on gutters so
that we trap the water. We don't have an option but to harvest
water. Thanks to God for the rains which give us water that is safer
to drink compared to the scarce, expensive and dirty water we get
from council," she said.
William Disown
of Mabvuku said he doesn't even remember when he last got
council water. "We are harvesting water since council is failing
to provide us with water but what surprises me most is that the
local authority continues to send us exorbitant water bills yet
it is not delivering anything to us," he said.
Tatenda Urayayi
of Dzivarasekwa said council is failing to appreciate that water
is life and hence the rains have come at the right time. "Our
city fathers seem to be ignorant of the fact that water is life.
They talk of shortage of funds yet they allow corruption in council
and hence we got no tape water be we are happy the rains have given
us an alternative source of money," said Urayayi.
Combined
Harare Residents Association (CHRA) Advocacy and Information
officer, Tendai Muchada, said perennial water shortages in the city
provide a fertile ground for continued typhoid and cholera diseases.
"The Harare
City council is failing to efficiently and effectively provide water
to the bulk of Harare's suburbs to date. Many residents go
for weeks without water, especially in Highlands, Greendale, Mabvuku,
Kambuzuma, Kuwadzana, and other high density suburbs.
"To make
matters worse some of the boreholes which were being used as an
alternative have been condemned after testing positive of salmonella
typhea, the bacteria that causes cholera and typhoid," Muchada
said.
Muchada however
attributed council's failure to provide clean water to city
fathers' bankruptcy.
"Firstly,
the city is losing at least 50 per cent of its treated water due
to leakages resulting from burst pipes. Currently, the city needs
at least USD 200 million to deal with the replacement of old infrastructure,"
he said.
Development
partners, after realising the country is struggling to revitalise
water infrastructure, drilled boreholes in urban areas.
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Radio Harare fact
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