GWANDA Town’s perennial water woes will soon be a thing of the past following a deal struck between the council and the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).
by LUYANDUHLOBO MAKWATI
Zinwa had on several occasions cut water supplies to the town over unpaid bills, but recently introduced a water rationing programme to avoid a humanitarian crisis.
Gwanda mayor Knowledge Ndlovu yesterday told Southern Eye that they had reached common ground with Zinwa to ensure residents will have uninterrupted water supplies.
“It is true what was published by Zinwa recently, but the truth of the matter is that as a local authority we want to settle our dues with them. The biggest challenge is that our residents are not paying their rates and as a result we delay making payments to the relevant department,” he said.
Ndlovu said all the problems with Zinwa were now a thing of the past and it had since started providing supplies to residents.
“We have met and agreed on the water issue and they have started pumping the precious liquid for our people. We also urge residents to pay their bills so that in turn we pay our service providers to avert situations that affected us over the last months,” he said.
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“The other problem we have now is that we are negotiating with power utility Zesa because our water purification plant does not have a dedicated power line, so every time there is load-shedding we are faced with a situation where our water levels decline and other suburbs fail to get water because the plant won’t be running.”
Gwanda residents recently threatened to block installation of prepaid water meters arguing that the move would worsen their plight.
