By Rungano Dzikira
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - led Harare City Council has cut Harare water supply from an average of 320 mega litres to 170 mega litres per day, further exacerbating the plight of Harare residents already burdened with poor service delivery while rates continue to spike.
The council, currently battling an exceedingly appalling residential stands corruption storm that sucked in the council’s top brass, said it halved water supply in the capital city owing to an acute shortage of water treatment chemicals.
In an interview, HCC Engineer Moyo, said that council has been experiencing teething problems with chemical procurement resulting in the reduction in water production.
“For the past ten days or so our supplier has cut down on supply of chemicals. Our major supplier has cut down on chemicals deliveries leading to water production decreasing from the usual average of 320 mega litres per day to 170mega litres.
“From my understanding of the situation, this is of course related to the growing debt at Zimphos, from the council and other customers,” he said.
Responding to questions on the resumption of optimum water service, Engineer Moyo said that they had met up with Zimphos to discuss on way forward and had since agreed to improve load deliveries from 2 to 4 loads per day.
Harare Council seems to be toying around with water supply as this is not the first time that Harare residents have had to endure council’s gruelling water supply hiccups.
Previously, Government had to chip in to rescue council with water treatment chemicals after a public outcry over dirty water.
Only last month, the HCC was up in arms with residents over erroneous billing after adopting a new billing system which was reported to be manipulating figures, in most cases having ratepayers being overcharged.
Among other reasons, over the years the HCC has been failing to meet its obligations, ranging from poor service delivery, poor refuse collection in Harare’s suburbs, gross incompetence, erratic-dirty water supply, corruption and failure to prioritise crucial issues at the back of hefty salaries being paid to its employees.
