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Zimbabwe Watch concerned about ZINWA's poor service delivery
Zimbabwe Watch
September 08, 2008

Zimbabwe Watch notes with concern that urban residents throughout the country have been complaining loudly and bitterly about ZINWA's take-over of their water supply for some three years now. Initially they tried to resist the takeover, on the grounds that it was unnecessary since their municipalities had not failed to supply water - it is only in such a situation that the Urban Councils Act (section 314) permits the Minister to step in and take over a city's water supply. Moreover, they pointed out that the infrastructure had been provided and paid for by the residents over the past hundred years, and they resented handing it all over to ZINWA with no recompense whatsoever. The then minister Mutezo's response was always to repeat that the takeover was a Cabinet directive - "I am not the one" in other words!

Once ZINWA took over, residents soon saw their water supply deteriorate drastically in both quantity and quality, to the extent of their having to go without any water at all for days and even months at a time, endangering the health and lives of millions, not to mention the serious inconvenience of not being able to simply get water out of a tap as we had become accustomed to doing. Women as usual have carried most of the burden - they have to go in search of water, spend hours queuing at the scarce and sometimes illegal water sources and carry the heavy chigubus home so that their families can survive.

Zimbabwe Watch reminds the nation that the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Local Government presented a thorough report on its findings on ZINWA in March 2007 and made a strong recommendation that, since ZINWA clearly lacked the capacity to provide water in towns and cities, this directive should be reversed - but this was ignored. Likewise the militant Combined Harare Residents Association issued numerous reports and objections to the ZINWA Harare takeover, all to no avail. Masvingo residents even demonstrated against their ZINWA takeover, but their wishes were ignored. The only city able to resist the takeover is Bulawayo. All the other cities' residents have had to resign themselves to taking a century's step backwards to the time when people had to dig wells or fetch water from rivers - all because government would not listen to the wishes of its citizens.

Now ZINWA is back in the news for being unable to transport essential chemicals from Msasa to Norton and being unable to inoculate 1,500 of its workers in western Harare suburbs against tetanus and typhoid - they work with raw sewage, but thousands of ordinary citizens live in constant contact with open, raw sewage and even drink such water! To cap it all, now former deputy minister Walter Mzembi has spent a good quarter of an hour on prime time TV explaining why Harare residents should expect only 3 hours of water a day - if they are lucky!

But Zimbabwe Watch recalls the Reserve Bank governor promising to give ZINWA a "special facility" in September last year of however much money they needed - unbudgeted money! - to sort out its problems and start providing the service we expect in our towns and cities. What happened to all that money? Are we going to see an audit? We see lots of ZINWA vehicles around the place - but not much water, except from burst pipes, such as the one on East Road in Harare where people have installed crossing stones as they do in rural areas!

Zimbabwe Watch encourages residents to stand up for their human right to clean water and a clean environment, and to continue to fight to regain control of their water supply and water infrastructure over which they have property rights. Until we have a democratic government which listens to residents' concerns and does not ride roughshod over their wishes because of "a Cabinet directive", we have to struggle to get back our water infrastructure and supply.

*Zimbabwe Watch was formed to keep the basic principles for freedom, equality (including gender equality), justice and democracy at the forefront of our national vision and to ensure that they are adhered to in both policy and implementation at all levels of our society and government. Zimbabwe Watch believes that it is only by responding to contemporary issues important to Zimbabweans and by compelling adherence to these basic principles that every Zimbabwean will be able to reach his or her maximum potential and that our nation can achieve maximum growth, development, creativity and democratic governance.

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