Residents Voices
Bulawayo residents have called on
the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) to run a more efficient water shedding schedule
as the programme has so far been inconsistently implemented. The BCC has put in
place water shedding as a means of reducing the water consumption rates in the
city after poor seasonal rainfall and the decommissioning of Upper Ncema Dam
one of the city’s five major supply dams. The schedule was such that residents
would go for 48hours per week without water supplies. However some residents
have complained that the water does not come back at scheduled times and in
other areas the water does not go at all. For some residents when the water
comes they have to throw out gallons and gallons of it before clear water
starts to run and this results in very high water bills. Residents also noted
that a lot of the pressure that comes with resumption of water flow was causing
their meters to run even when there would have been no water flowing at that
point.
City council officials have also
acknowledged that the first schedule of water shedding has not yielded much
positive results due to the city’s old pipe system which has led to a lot of
pipe bursts and a lot of clean water being lost in the process. They also
stated that the pipe bursts and rust is what is causing water to be
contaminated when it starts flowing again. Furthermore the officials said they
had noted that residents were still using more water than had been hoped
possible during water shedding. The council says it is even considering
increasing the number of load shedding days to reducing the consumption rate from
110Megaliters (ML) to 90ML per day. Council has urged residents to keep their
taps closed until there is water flowing to avoid their meters running without
any water flow. They also encouraged residents to keep record of their meter
readings so they could use these to query any over charges on their bills.
Given the dire water situation
residents are facing as well as the tough task the city fathers have in
ensuring that residents save as much water as possible, BPRA shall be sending
regular Water Crisis Alerts to keep residents abreast with the water situation
in the city until it has improved. The updates will also include information
from the all stakeholders meetings being held in the city to deal with the
water crisis.
Regards
Information Department
Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association
Bus. Tel: +263 9 61196
Cell: +263 772 516 729
Website: www.bprazim.org
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