Harare — University of Zimbabwe hostels will be open to students next month after the restoration of water supplies to the campus, Dean of students Mr Munyaradzi Madambi has said.

Mr Madambi said with effect from January 25 next year, the institution will accommodate 4 500 students into its halls of residence.

"The water situation has improved at the campus for the past five months following the commissioning of boreholes by Unicef though it does not cover 100 percent of the institution's water supplies.

"UZ, through the Director of Works, is working with Harare City Council to bring a permanent solution to the institution's water supplies and we are opening the halls of residence next year," said Mr Madambi.

This has come at time when UZ was faced with erratic water supplies which hampered the re-opening of the halls of residence.

The UZ hostels were closed in July 2007 because of erratic water supplies, forcing many students to seek alternative accommodation in suburbs around the institution.

The university did not open the hostels following an order by the City of Harare Health Department to close them until water supplies were restored.

Mr Madambi said the institution was working hard to make sure that by the time the university opened everything would be in place.

"Our biggest challenge is the issue of kitchens which are not operational. We have only one kitchen and we are trying our best that by the time we open next year our kitchens will be operating at full capacity," he said.

The disabled, final and first year students who are living outside Harare, would be given first preference.

He urged students to pay full tuition and US$400 for accommodation before January 20 next year.

The money will cater for food and cleaning materials at the institution.

Many people feel that accommodation will only cater for the rich who will be able to raise US$900 before the due date and will disadvantage the poor as most of them depend on the Government cadetship programme.

Mr Madambi said most students under the cadetship programme had started applying to the Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education and hoped that by the time they open everything would be in place.

The unavailability of accommodation on the campus has forced students to live under squalid conditions and engage in morally repugnant activities to keep themselves going.

The students stayed in small, overcrowded, poorly ventilated rooms close to the campus and this exposed them to health hazards.

The university, which has an enrolment of about 12 500 students, did not open the halls of residence this semester.