Community Radio Harare recently published this:

As water shortages continue to worsen in many Harare suburbs, some mandimbandimbas have taken charge of local boreholes demanding that each resident must pay $1 to access the borehole water.

Several residents who spoke to Talking Harare confirmed that the mandimbandimbas were terrorizing them and taking advantage of the water crisis by demanding money. ‘Yes it is true that the mandimbandimbas are asking us to pay $1 per resident for us to access UNICEF boreholes that are the only source of water in Highfield. For example, at Highfield Satellite Clinic this situation has been going on for over a week now and these people seem to be untouchable once again as nothing is being done to stop them,’ said Mrs Faith Madondo of Highfield.

When Talking Harare visited Mbare, it noticed the mandimbandimbas controlling hundreds of residents who were trying to draw water from a mass tap near Mbare Netball Complex. Residents were being asked to pay ‘maintenance’ fees for the water tap which is apparently owned by council. The situation was similar at a borehole near Budiriro 2 Primary School and other suburbs like Glen Norah, Dzivarasekwa and Glen Norah. Those who were failing to pay were turned away and denied access to water.

The mandimbandimbas were recently chucked out of kombi ranks where they were forcing transport operators to pay them fees which were not justified since all bus termini in Harare are owned by Harare city council. Police and soldiers moved in to remove them following incessant complaints by members of the public, kombi operators and stakeholders that these were becoming a law unto themselves and causing havoc to the travelling public and transport business.

Meanwhile, some touts who were removed from kombi ranks are slowly trickling back after council failed to swiftly move in and reclaim its termini. Talking Harare observed that at Copacabana, Market Square and Fourth Street, the illegal touts are coming back and causing confusion once again.

Taking action against a Typhoid outbreak, which to date has had 900 reported cases, the City of Harare hastily dispatched Municipal Police to contain the spread of the disease by closing down Mereki, a popular braai spot in Warren Park. So far city and government health officials have named fish, raw meat sold in butcheries and fruits and vegetables for sale from open air vendors and people’s markets as vectors of the Salmonella Typhi bacterium. Authorities even went so far as to issue a statement saying that water was not the problem in this outbreak. According to the World Health Organisation, water, or in this case the lack of it, is the cause of a typhoid outbreak.

Water and sanitation delivery services have been poor at best and nonexistent at worst in all of the areas affected by Typhoid. Health officials report that cases have been found in Chitungwiza, Epworth, Dzivarasekwa, Budiriro and Warren Park. The epicentre of the outbreak is said to be in Kuwadzana. Residents of all these areas have complained vociferously to anyone who would listen about erratic water delivery, sewerage flowing unabated in the streets, zero refuse collection by the city and the decrepit state of their public ablution facilities. Given this set of circumstances it is surprising that outbreak is not more severe.

Since late October this year, 211 cases of typhoid have been reported in Harare. Reported cases of typhoid within Harare have opened a Pandora’s Box.

Though no deaths have been recorded so far, questions have been asked as to how a primitive disease such as typhoid can cause havoc in a country that has proper infrastructure in place for the supply of clean water.

Bigger questions are centred on how a country that has attained so much progress in health continues to experience typhoid cases.

Last year, Harare’s Mabvuku suburb was hit by a typhoid outbreak and hundreds of residents feared for their lives as the disease spread like a veld fire across the suburbs.

Then Harare City Council authorities claimed that they had contained the outbreak. Now a year later, the disease has resurfaced in Dzivarasekwa suburbs, making it clear that that only a temporary solution had been found.

More than 200 cases of the disease have so far been reported.

The underlying factor behind the outbreak of typhoid is the shortage of water.

Mabvuku is one place where residents struggle to get access to clean water. The residents have dug wells while boreholes have been sunk as alternative sources of clean water.

While for years Harare residents had thought that water problems are for those living in Eastern suburbs, which are furthest from Motorn Jeffrey Waterworks, the problems have come close next door. Suburbs such as Dzivarasekwa, Budiriro, Highfield, Glen Norah and Glen View also have serious water problems. Pessimists say the situation will become even worse while prophets of doom say the whole capital will end up being supplied by boreholes and wells.

But the million-dollar question is, has Harare really come to such a stage whereby residents have to accept that the city fathers cannot provide water?

Harare Residents’ Trust Coordinator, Mr Precious Shumba sees the typhoid outbreak as a sign of a gloomy future unless drastic measures are urgently taken.

For local government expert, Mr Percy Toriro, the typhoid outbreak in Harare is a clear sign of a failed system.
For years, the Harare City Council has been talking about alternative water sources but no action has really taken place on the ground. The peg that was planted at the proposed site of Kunzvi Dam ages ago has now gathered rust and has probably disappeared by now. Kunzvi Dam is a long-term solution.

Yet, the painful fact about Harare is that the council is simply failing to harness water from dams, purify it and supply residents who pay exorbitant charges every month.

While we huff and puff trying to find solutions, it is sad to realise that the capital’s authorities are clueless. The authorities have no solution to the capital’s water woes and are not treating the matter with the urgency it deserves.

For the ordinary person in Mabvuku, who has not accessed tap water for years, the question is: Can such a council continue to be entrusted with such a vital service delivery? Does the council still have a right to collect water rates? Or is it a matter of wrong people being given such an important mandate?

I remember the days when water in the taps sometimes used to come out cloudy and with a strong smell of the purification chemicals the City Council would use on the water. When this would happen some of us would complain that they were using too many of these purification chemicals and that they made the water taste ‘funny’. Indeed, others amongst us even wondered if these chemicals might be poisonous or harmful to our health. Ah, the good old days!

The water that comes out of our taps today is now harmful, and with its signature tinge of yellow-brown, is now a far cry from the cloudy, overly clean waters of old.

Many of Harare’s resident’s don’t even get to see this dirty water gushing out of their taps, as they no longer get City Council water. As a result, many are using and reusing dirty water from anywhere and everywhere. The water in Harare is no longer safe. In its latest assault on the City of Harare, the deadly water has hospitalised 211 (and counting) people. With the memory of the cholera outbreak of 2008 still fresh in our minds, I am perplexed that the council is doing absolutely nothing, when they know only too well how bad the situation can become.