CLOSE to 1 000 Bulawayo residents yesterday took to the streets protesting against the city council’s plans to install pre-paid water meters at their households.
BY SILAS NKALA
The residents, who converged at Bulawayo City Hall and later marched to Stanley Square, threatened to vandalise the meters and chase council officials assigned to install the meters.
Addressing residents at Stanley Square, speakers condemned the installation of pre-paid meters, describing it as a violation of people’s rights to water.
“People are suffering in this country because the people who are ruling do not fear God,” Anglistone Sibanda, coordinator of Shalom Trust, said.
“In 1996, I do not know what had happened to us when we started worshiping Sekuru Kaguvi, Mbuya Nehanda and others. God says we must not worship any other god except Him.”
Chitungwiza Residents’ Trust representative Marvelous Khumalo in his solidarity message, said when Zesa introduced prepaid electricity meters, it misled consumers into believing that the project would result in uninterrupted power supplies.
“They took the money and bought cars and houses for themselves and now we spend even longer hours without electricity than before,” he said.
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“If you Bulawayo residents allow them to install pre-paid water meters, you will have caused us a problem and they will introduce that to us in Chitungwiza and we will have serious water problems.”
Khumalo urged the residents to resist the meters.
Michael Mabgwe from Kadoma Residents’ Association said Bulawayo youths must mobilise each other to beat up the council officials who will be installing the devices and even remove them.
Representative of Abammeli Human Rights Lawyers Network, Tineyi Mukwewa warned council to brace for a bruising legal fight with human rights defenders.
“We as lawyers are not going to fold our hands and just look when the council wants to violate human rights,” he said.
“We are saying let the city council try to do that and we will meet in court.”
Matabeleland Zimbabwe Chamber of Informal Economy president Edward Manning said most residents were now in the informal sector and could not afford commodification of resources such as water.
Ibetshu Likazulu representative, Mbuso Fuzwayo said the pre-paid water meters were as evil as the Gukurahundi massacres, which claimed over 20 000 civilians’ lives in Midlands and Matabeleland regions following a government military crackdown targeting dissidents in the early 1980s.
“We must beat up the council officials if they try to install the pre-paid meters,” he said.
But Bulawayo City Council recently vowed to go ahead with the project despite reservations by residents, who argued that commercialisation of water was a breach of their constitutional rights.
A tender for the supply of 1 500 prepaid water meters is soon to be advertised.
Council’s engineering services director Simela Dube recently said consultations were made and it emerged that the local authority requires about $200 to acquire each meter.
Friday’s demonstrations were jointly organised by the Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association, civic society groups and church organisations.
