Financial Gazette (Harare)
Nelson Chenga
31 August 2008
Harare — A MOUND of garbage that has piled up over the past three years at the junction of Seventh Avenue and Mushonganyama Link in Harare's densely populated Mbare suburb threatens to block the intersection altogether in a few months' time.
A MOUND of garbage that has piled up over the past three years at the junction of Seventh Avenue and Mushonganyama Link in Harare's densely populated Mbare suburb threatens to block the intersection altogether in a few months' time.
A steady stream of raw sewage from a blocked pipe at a house along Fifth Avenue flows into Mushonganyama Link to merge with a spill of more septic waste from Sixth Avenue.
A river of putrid algae flows down the road, making its way into the adjacent Ardbennie Road via a trough in an island separating two parallel roads.
Vehicles driving past this eyesore spray pedestrians with this wastewater, which eventually ends in a drain that empties into the Mukuvisi River.
Several vendors line both sides of the Mushonganyika Link selling all sorts of goods, including vegetables. They seem unnerved by the filth and foul-smelling environment they operate in.
Said Amai Jasi, a vegetable vendor whose stall is only inches from the garbage dump: "When the council stopped collecting our refuse bags about three years ago, people started dumping litter here. The council would occasionally clear the rubbish, but it has been some time since they last came. We have since stopped asking them to come."
A gentle flow of clean water gushing from a damaged valve along Ninth Avenue meanders through a series of potholes towards Ardbennie Road. It forms a pool at a point where the road rises steeply.
This squalid scene is just one of countless examples of a capital city fast collapsing under the weight of water and sanitation problems.
Once dubbed the 'Sunshine City' and a fine model for urban centres in developing economies, Harare is now turning into a mega slum, choked by an increasing population, a dilapidated road infrastructure, piles of garbage and constant pipe bursts.
Ironically, three years after the government embarked on a countrywide slum clearance programme, dubbed Oper-ation Murambatsvina (clear out the filth); there is little in the urban areas to show the drive was worth the commotion it caused.
Urban planning experts say although the Murambatsvina blitz that was roundly condemned locally and internationally, reduced the prevalence of illegal structures and moderately decongested the urban areas, the government failed to sustain the operation.
For instance, soon after Murambatsvina, Harare's sewerage network was supposed to have been cleared of debris that had accumulated over time, using high velocity machines, rubber cups and sewer rods.
Although the equipment can all be manufactured locally, the exercise appears to have been considered unnecessary.
The operation was supposed to have been backed up by an adequate provision of vehicles, machinery, equipment and skilled personnel, but there has been very little progress towards a healthier city because of crippling shortages.
As a result, problems that should have been addressed through Operation Muram-batsvina have worsened as more debris continues to choke the capital's sewage reticulation system.
The ramifications of the situation are already being experienced. Outbreaks of diarrhoea have been reported periodically and cases of cholera could become commonplace given the fact that Harare's health delivery system is already under serious stress because of drug, personnel and equipment shortages.
With all the ingredients for a major health disaster now in place, it could only be a matter of time before the time bomb detonates. However, in the face of all these woes, the authorities seem unperturbed.
The Harare City Council and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) share the onus of upholding health standards in the capital, home to more than two million inhabitants.
The city council is responsible for refuse removal and road maintenance, while ZINWA takes care of water provision and sewerage removal.
Operating under a harsh economic environment, both organisations are under increasing public pressure to fulfil their mandates.
While the Urban Councils Act governs the Harare City Council's operations, prompt reaction to residents' demands is next to impossible.
Bureaucratic inertia characteristic of almost all quasi-government organisations has resulted in the council failing to deliver services to residents.
Leslie Gwindi, the council's public relations manager who has run Harare's works department for almost four years, said because the council basically relies on revenue collected from ratepayers, any slight disparity between revenue and expenditure hampers service delivery efforts.
"For Harare to function we need no less than 60 compactors and these machines are expensive to acquire. The equipment we have has not been replaced for the past 10 years. It has been under immense pressure and is now inadequate," said Gwindi.
He admitted that with less than 10 refuse collection trucks to service the entire metropolitan area; the situation "presents a major health and environmental challenge" as the rain season approaches.
While council hopes for the resumption of international grants, mostly from the World Bank, which bankrolled Urban II projects, ZINWA believes its share of Harare's problems can be solved through local initiatives.
According to the parastatal, the solution to half of Harare's water and sanitation nightmares hinge on public awareness campaign. The water authority says the majority of sewerage blockages are caused by items such as cotton wool; rags, spoons, clothing and sand used for scouring that are trapped in the system.
Confronted with ever rising costs of purifying water, ZINWA believes that consumers need to be encouraged to conserve water by, for example, installing throttles on water meters to reduce the amount of water being consumed.
Deputy Minister of Water and Infrastructural Develo-pment, Walter Mzembi painted a grim picture of the future of Harare.
"It can be safely said that water provision is gradually crumbling and if not properly handled there will be no water to drink in the city," he said.
While consumers can be blamed for some of the city's water and sanitation woes, ZINWA itself is at the core of the more complex problems that have grown over time.
And with authority's operations now seriously threatened by a critical shortage of funds to pay for water purification chemicals, transport and hiring key personnel such as engineers and technicians, there is little hope for a quick solution. Corroded water pipelines have created more problems for the organisation, as half of all purified water is lost through leakages.
In the course of investigating this story, The Financial Gazette discovered that ZINWA could not properly distribute and monitor the water it is purifying simply because a digital system at Warren Hills control station broke down many years ago.
An employee of the parastatal confided: "Water used to be controlled via a radio system, which would switch pumps on and off when reservoirs emptied or filled up. Today this is done manually, which is extremely difficult or totally unreliable for sharing water equitably"
"A deal with one of the wireless phone providers to restart this service, which is vital for proper water management in the capital, collapsed.
This paper discovered that an automatic valve at Zimbabwe House that is apparently critical in controlling the flow of water is no longer functioning. It is located in a high security zone and therefore getting access to repair it has proved difficult, The Financial Gazette was told.
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Toss Mugabe into the dumpster with the rest of the trash as well.
Harare residens do not need more compactors! What for?
Mugabe thugs and cronies will continue to sell them across the frontiers for a quick buck. Lunatic Mugabe knows about that. Heads of all the parastatals handling garbage, sewerage and water supply are Mugabe cronies and thugs.
What is needed is more Mercedes cars and 4-wheel vehicles to judges so that they can travel from their illegally allocated farms back to their chambers in a shorter time in order to compile proofs against corrupt high cadres of these parastatals. But surely there is high chance that the judges would be frightened to act because the high cadres have direct access to ministers with whom they are sharing the loot!
Nay, instead of compactors, we need the MDC with executive power in order to put things right again.
In the meantime, may I suggest that Harare residents, acting in unison, dump their garbage in front of Mugabe's chinese-built palace! That is called peaceful civil disobedience! Like the one the Thai people are holding to dump the corrup Thai PM who, like monster Mugabe, is refusing to quit!