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Water is essential to life
Tonderayi Mukeredzi
August 08, 2012

Water is essential to life, to development and to every aspect of human endeavour. It is an inalienable right whose deficiency entails catastrophic health and sanitation consequences. Only a few years ago, water for all used to be a catchphrase for many local authorities.

While at this stage of the country's hard won independence, citizens should be battling with issues of price and affordability, utility management, billing practices and service level standards, it is sad to note that one of the major concerns in the water and sanitation sector is not necessarily any of the aforementioned issues but mere access to the commodity.

Recently, government launched the "Conserve water and stop littering to save money and the environment" campaign, one of whose highlight is to use water sparingly. But the objectives of this campaign are pointless if residents have no water in their homes. Whilst such a campaign would make sense in Harare where water is somewhat available, it would completely be meaningless in Chitungwiza where availability of water is a chronic problem.

In some parts of the town, particularly in Unit A, water hardly ever drips from the tape. If it does, it is once per month or once in 2 months, and when it trickles, it is in the middle of the night, yet the local authority still has the temerity to charge ratepayers for water consumption every month. Whereas other parts of the town, experience intermittent water supplies, Unit A, and O resemble rural settlements as households depend solely on community or self drilled boreholes for their water consumption needs. When summer beckons, the boreholes or wells dry up forcing poor residents to wake up as early as 3 o'clock in the morning to make a beeline at the reliable and well serviced UNICEF drilled boreholes. And where there is a crisis, opportunities are created for others. Enterprising young men and women are making brisk business charging US$1 to fill up five 20-litre buckets of water for affording clients.

There has never been an attempt by Chitungwiza to explain why there is no water in households. Residents do not know whether or not the Council administers a water rationing exercise. If there is water rationing, there should at least be standards for such things as a guaranteed number of hours of service or a minimum pressure, and or a time schedule of days and times when water is available in the same manner the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) publishes a load shedding schedule they never stick to.

In all this suffering, the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Fidelis Mhashu (MDC-T) has been conspicuous by his lack of care for his constituency. Apart from a shallow borehole he drilled with funds from the Constituency Development Fund, Mhashu has not shown real concern for residents' water woes. The borehole he had drilled has not only dried up but has not been maintained leading to its breakdown a long time ago. Why as an MP for the area, Mhashu drilled a borehole without sufficient mechanisms in place to ensure its functionality at all times boggles the mind. In normal circumstances, there should be arrangements between his office and the local authority to ensure that all boreholes, which have become the major source of water in the town, continue to function.

In the face of these problems, there has already been a ding-dong of plaudits from certain quarters of the good work the Fungai Mbetsa appointed reconstruction team is doing. Yet since they started doing whatever they were commissioned to do, many residents still do not have access to water and other basic services. And just like the administration of dismissed town clerk Godfrey Tanyanyiwa, there has never been a deliberate effort by Mbetsa's team to engage and talk to the residents to hear what their concerns and views are on a variety of issues affecting them. There is an assumption by the team and the local government Ministry that they know what ratepayers want.

It is commendable that the team is trying to rehabilitate or recommending rehabilitation of Chitungwiza for it was time someone stopped corruption in the town, however, Mbetsa and his team needs to justify their expensive existence to residents. To residents, apart from a few press releases flighted in the press purporting to explain some of what is taking place, there is hardly any distinction between Mbetsa's administration and Tanyanyiwa's corruption riddled administration (at least not yet). Residents hope that when the team finishes its work, it will publish its findings and recommendations.

Going forward, Chitungwiza, as an independent authority needs to come up with its own water solution, and that solution lies in constructing its own dam - this should have been done long back. Continuing to depend on Harare for water in the face of rapid urbanization is a ticking health bomb.

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