Blessings Chidakwa — Harare City Council is, for the umpteenth time, being bailed out by emergency support from the Government to increase its water supply capacity, amid current water woes bedevilling the city.
Measures which the Government is undertaking to ease the water crisis include assisting with payment for water treatment chemicals and a programme to draw water from Darwendale Dam to Morton Jaffray Waterworks for purification.
The Second Republic, under President Mnangagwa, is on a major drive to ensure all local authorities, regardless of who controls them, become functional and responsive to public health as well as other basic needs of residents.
Acute water woes have been experienced across Harare over the past week, raising fears of a potential health hazard.
Among the suburbs worst hit by the water shortages are Warren Park, Glen Norah, Mabvuku, Kuwadzana, Kambuzuma, parts of Avondale, Glaudina and Mbare.
In response to an outcry by residents over the water shortages in Harare, Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe said the Government was on top of the situation.
"The Local Government and Public Works Ministry is working on water reticulation programmes to draw water from Darwendale Dam and pump it into Morton Jaffray Waterworks for purification and onward conveying it to the City of Harare.
"The ministry has also facilitated meetings to bring together relevant water treatment chemicals suppliers to improve the supplies and payments for supplies made. I am happy to note that there has been significant progress regarding this," he said.
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Minister Garwe added, "It is expected that by year end the water supply will have increased from current 330 megalitres per day to over 600 megalitres per day."
A tunnel linking Darwendale Dam with Morton Jaffray was commissioned in the 1980s under a major water augmentation programme.
The waterworks has to pump the raw water up from the eastern end of the tunnel and that does require functional equipment.
The Government has intervened several times in urban local authorities when the health and well-being of residents are at stake.
Urban local authorities have a great deal of legal independence making it hard for Government intervention. However, the central Government can intervene in an emergency and the Second Republic has used this provision when necessary.
Before the successive opposition councillors took charge of Harare in the early 2000s, residents were guaranteed quality service delivery that encompassed consistent refuse collection, availability of potable water and sewer reticulation among other basic services.
However, since the opposition took over the situation has been grim much to the disappointment of residents who are paying bills for services not rendered.
Harare's incompetence has seen the emergence of diseases such as cholera and typhoid, which could have all been avoided had urban councils done their job to the book.
