Published by the government of Zimbabwe
12 November 2008
editorial
Water shortages in Harare and Chitungwiza are growing worse despite the substantial injection of funds, in both foreign and local currency, fuel and vehicles by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
Suburbs in south-west Harare and Chitungwiza that have been hit by cholera are still receiving very intermittent supplies, forcing residents to resort to streams and wells that could be contaminated.
The emergency programme of drilling boreholes at schools and clinics in the most vulnerable suburbs appears to be held up by obstacles put in place by councils, which, unable to help, now want to hinder the efforts of others.
Zinwa, despite active recruitment into its public relations department, and the parent Water Ministry are remaining silent over what is being done, or not done.
And people are still dying.
The rains are soon to start falling and if cholera is still present, then the bacteria will get into streams and rivers. And if water is still short, then people will draw at least washing water from these water courses, exposing themselves to high risks of infection.
From what we can see, it appears that Zinwa is trying some demand management to spread very limited supplies of treated water around. But instead of giving every household water for some hours each day, the result so far is to give suburbs water for a day or two and then cut it off for several more days, negating the whole rationale of rationing to improve overall health.
Urgent action is now required.
For a start, Zinwa can tell us what it is doing, and how it is spending the money and using the resources recently allocated.
Secondly, Zinwa can hammer out an emergency rationing and action plan, preferably with the help of a small advisory committee of industrial, business and residential representatives; some of these can be councillors, but others will need to be officials of business groups.
Thirdly, the emergency programme to drill boreholes can be put into action and accelerated. There is little need for complex bureaucracy here. Schools are scattered in such a way that no small child has to walk far, and so are suitable sites for boreholes so no resident has to carry a can or wheel a barrow that far.
In most parts of Harare a borehole will hit water, and the areas where underlying rock prevents a borehole being sunk are already known; a lot of private boreholes and wells have already been sunk in most suburbs so it will be fairly obvious where boreholes can be sunk.
Shallow wells can be made a great deal safer. Those big concrete sewer pipes, upended, can form a protected lining and surface lip at low cost and a simple raised lid will add to protection.
Such protected shallow wells could be dug very quickly, if there was a will.
Other countries faced with the sandy soils covering much of Harare and the deep clays in our vleis, use pipe wells.
These are manually-driven "shallow boreholes". It would be easy for almost any metal shop in the city to make the spiked units that are driven into the ground with lengths of pipe attached as the spike gets deeper.
There is just a need for special couplings that can take the strain of repeated blows and preferably a simply tripod that can be used to raise and drop the hammering pipe.
But once such simple equipment is available, dozens of such wells could be drilled at little cost.
One or two equipped with simple hand pumps could supply a street of houses.
There are a lot of other emergency solutions, and plenty that can be done to ration, sensibly and fairly, what is purified each day while the longer-term problems are sorted out.
All it requires is a determination that Harare and Chitungwiza will not suffer anymore.
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