Harare — Most parts of Harare - including the city centre - did not get water yesterday amid claims by Zinwa staff that the authority had stopped pumping after it ran out of one of the essential chemicals, aluminium sulphate.
Aluminium sulphate is used to clarify water, but its supply has been erratic in recent weeks.
No official comment could be obtained from Zinwa last night as its senior officials could not be reached.
Only Harare water general manager Engineer Lisben Chipfunde was reachable, but he declined to comment saying he was on leave.
But Zinwa workers at Warren Control said there was no pumping at Morton Jaffray Waterworks, but could not say when pumping would resume.
Other Zinwa sources said the water authority had "yet to receive a consignment of chemicals imported from South Africa through funding from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe".
Zinwa recently received $374,2 quadrillion to address the water crisis, particularly in the southwest of the city, hit by a cholera outbreak centred on Budiriro
Government also paid 8,7 million rand on behalf of Zinwa for the importation of water treatment chemicals.
In an interview yesterday, the Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said the Government and its partners were still compiling the latest cholera statistics.
"I continue to worry over the water situation and sewer reticulation in the country, especially during the current rainy season," he said.
The Government and its partners, Dr Parirenyatwa said, would continue to educate people on how to avoid contracting the deadly disease.
"I want to stress the issue of shaking hands. Although it's part of our tradition to shake hands, it's high time people stopped shaking hands," he said.
Dr Parirenyatwa has assured the nation that the country's health system was on high alert and taking all necessary measures to control and manage the cholera outbreak.
He also confirmed that a total of 11 071 suspected cholera cases had been reported at health centres in the country's nine provinces except Matabeleland North.
He also dismissed reports by some sections of the international media that claimed that Government was falsifying cholera statistics to cover up for its shortcomings.
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Any political system that fails to meet the aspirations of the people it seeks to serve, and subsequently denies those people basics of life should be trashed! Mugabe....., president of Zimbabwe???? He is simply a resident who is unfairly occupying state's top residence....! unfortunately, some SADC heads of state are pathological cowards. Viva, Bostwana for your forthright comments on Mugabe's tyrancy!
You just don't get it.
Botswana is AFFIRMATIVELY irrelevant; its relevance, a negative one, is the promotion of western imperial reactionary circles' INTERESTS in Southern Africa.
To YOUR UNHLOLY hail Mary to Botswana, I riposte: down with Botswana!
"Botswana is AFFIRMATIVELY irrelevant; its relevance, a negative one," Make up your pathetic childish mind!
Sorry jallowlaw for your pathetic squinted view of the situation in Zimbabwe. You are a paid sellout, whose is dripping full of blood of innocent Zimbabweans. You must be past any spiritual redemption to vomit the words you say about Zimbabwe.
To those who blame everything going wrong in Zimbabwe to Zanu-Pf, here is a very interesting book all Africans should try and read so that they understand policies followed by the US. The book is called COFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, by John Perkins.
Former Economic Hit Man John Perkins on The First Truly Global Empire and its Impact on Latin America.
We speak with the author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man about his former work going into various countries to create a secret empire through economics after being recruited by the National Security Agency. Perkins discusses the policy in the context of the recent WTO meetings, the NYC transit strikes, and U.S. economic interventions in Latin America.
Well, as anwe economic hit men, basically in the last four decades, have managed to create the worlds first truly global empire; and I talk in detail in the book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, about this and in various countries where we went in to create this first truly global empire. Weve done it primarily without the military. The military comes in only as a last resort. Weve done it through economics, and weve done it very, very subtly, so its been a secret empire, unlike all of historys previous empires. Most Americans dont realize that weve created this empire. They dont realize what weve done in Latin America.
And the way economic hit men work, we use many different techniques, but probably the most typical is that well identify a company [country] that has resources that corporations covet, like oil. Well arrange a huge loan from an organization like the World Bank for that country; but the money wont go to that country at all. It goes to big U.S. corporationsBechtel, Haliburton, ones we all hear about all the timeto build infrastructure projects in that country.
These projects, like industrial parks and power plants, benefit the very rich of those countries and do nothing for the poor, except to leave the country in a huge debt, one it cant possibly repay, which means it cant give social services, education, health to its poor, and its put in a position where it doesnt repay its debts; so, at some point, we economic hit men go back in and we say: Look, you cant repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh. Sell oil to our oil companies real cheap or vote with us at the next U.N. vote, or send troops in support of ours some place in the world. And thats how weve created this empire; and weve done it without most Americans even realizing that its happening.
Well, I was recruited by the National Security Agency, the agency thats getting so much attention right now because of spying on Americans, while I was still in college at Boston University; and the National Security Agency put me through a series of very extensive tests, including lie detector tests, personality tests. And I was in business school. They determined that I could be a good economic hit man.
They also discovered a lot of weaknesses in my character (I like to think of them as kind of the bigthe three big drugs of our culture: money, power, and sex) that they could use as a hook to bring me in. So, I was told from the very beginning by this amazing woman, Claudine, (whos described in detail in the book) who is basically my trainer that, Look, youre going into a dirty business. Once youre in, you can never get out of this business; but were going to make it very attractive for you to go into this business.
No, I never worked directly for the N.S.A., I worked for a company called Chas T. Main, big consulting firm out of Boston. And these days almost all of this work is done by private contractors. Its not done directly by the C.I.A. or the N.S.A. They may recruit us, but we work for private industry.
The same is true of the jackals, Amy. If economic hit men fail, which we dont usually do (but I did in Panama, for example, and I tell in detail in the book about how that ended up)but my failure ended up in a jackal going in and assassinating Omar Torrijos, the president of Panama. When economic hit men fail, the jackals go in and either overthrow governments or assassinate leaders; and they, too, do not work directly for the government. These days, theyre private contractors. The days of the government agent, the 007, whos licensed to kill, are long gone.
Well, I was sent in to Panama to bring Omar Torrijos around, to bring him into our system, and he refused to do that. He said, Look, I know if I play your gamehe told me directlyIf I play your game, Ill become very rich. But thats not what interests me. I want to help my poor people. And, so he said, You can either get out of Panama or play the game my way. Well, we decided to stay and try to bring him around. He never would come around. And I knew all along that if I failed to bring this man around something dire would happen to him. And, you know, this is whats going on in Latin America right now. Evo Morales is being visited this week by an economic hit man whos going into his office saying, Congratulations, Mr. President
Well, an economic hit man who has to remain nameless at this point, but
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