Harare is facing a serious water crisis as the city’s major
water sources are drying up, with council now making provisions for the
situation to be declared a state of emergency so that urgent steps may be taken
to address the disaster. Lake Chivero, Harare’s main water sources which should
be spilling around this time of the year, is only around 60 percent full while
two other dams which augment water supplies — Harava and Seke — are 7 percent
and 6,3 percent full, respectively.
Harare has been forced to decommission Prince Edward
Waterworks because it can no longer draw water from Seke and Harava dams which
usually contribute 70 megalitres of water a day of which 30 megalitres were
dedicated to Chitungwiza and the remaining 40 megalitres supplied Mbare, Sunningdale
and surrounding areas.
Morton Jaffray Treatment Works, which has a capacity of 604
megalitres a day is only pumping 350 to 380 megalitres a day against a
requirement of about 1 200 megalitres a day.
Harare has since banned the use of hosepipes and is set to
upscale water rationing in order to conserve water.
The situation is also exacerbated by the shortage of water
treatment chemicals which is being faced by council.
The erratic water supply is indicative of a backlog in
infrastructure provision for the whole city and the need to speed up the
Kunzvi-Musami Dam for it to be incorporated into Harare’s water supply system.
In an interview during the tour of Seke and Harava dams,
Town Clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said there was virtually no water in the
two dams and any attempts to draw the remaining sandy water would damage the
city’s treatment infrastructure.
“When we get to a situation like where we are right now
where our dams are drying up. We are getting into a state of emergency so we
have to be prepared as a city and also as a nation to survive in that mode. So
what we will do is to get necessary resolutions from council and Government to
make sure as a state of emergency is declared,” he said.
“That will enable us to mobilise resources to deal with the
current situation. We will need bowsers for emergency. We also need to sink
deeper boreholes and look for additional water sources.”
Eng Chisango said because of the poor rainy season the
country experienced, the water sources were drying up quickly.
“We are now moving into the water rationing mode. We have
to use some stricter measures in terms of water supply. This means that people
have to reduce the amount of water that they are using and the city will also
reduce the amount of water that we are pumping,” he said.
Eng Chisango said the city has to rely on Morton Jaffray
and this will affect the preliminary water rationing timetable.
He said there also have been challenges in terms of water
treatment chemicals as the local supplier of the major chemical aluminium
sulphate delayed in delivering the chemical but another supplier had chipped in
to close the gap.
Water manager Eng Tapiwa Kunyadini said the city is set to
put stringent measures and upscale water rationing.
“We actually have to put more stringent measures, water
rationing system. As you can see, at the moment we are going into a drier season.
So far we have banned the use of hosepipes and we will reduce the number of
days that areas get water,” he said.
“We will be prioritising our key institutions such as
hospitals and other strategic areas while reducing the number of days people
will be getting water.”
Health services director Dr Prosper Chonzi said it was
unfortunate that the city was facing such a crisis which may lead to the rise
of water borne-diseases.
“In a situation like this, people will resort to fetching
water from unsafe sources such as shallow wells, streams and poorly constructed
boreholes. The advice is that those sources of water are not safe people should
treat the water they get from such sources before using it for domestic
consumption,” he said.
He said people can boil the water or use aqua tablets. Herald
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