Bulawayo City Council’s recent revelations are a profound wake-up call: the city's primary supply dams are failing to receive adequate inflows, despite significant rainfall this season.
This is not merely a weather issue; it is an urgent, man-made crisis demanding immediate governmental intervention.
The situation is a ticking time bomb for a city of over a million people.
According to the city’s latest dam watch report from December 30, 2025, the six operational dams sit at a collective 41.89% capacity. While this is an improvement from last year, it masks a systemic vulnerability.
Mtshabezi Dam has become the precarious backbone of the city's water security, swelling to 86.17% capacity. The other reservoirs, however, tell a different, far more concerning story:
Insiza Mayfair was at 45.82% when the last reading was made, Lower Ncema (44.64%), Upper Ncema ( 34.76%), Umzingwane Dam (27.38%) and Inyankuni Dam was at a critical 16.37%
The problem is not a lack of rain; it is a breakdown of law and order.
The poor inflows have a direct, attributable cause: widespread, unregulated gold mining and extensive environmental damage to the river systems' catchment areas.
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For years, gold panners and certain mining companies have destabilised the ecosystem, worsened siltation, and choked off natural water flow.
Zimbabwe attempted to ban riverbed (alluvial) mining in 2024 through Statutory Instrument 188. Yet, in the Mzingwane catchment area—the very heart of Bulawayo's water supply—companies continue to flagrantly defy this law.
The consequence is clear: the damage goes beyond environmental reports; it puts human lives at risk, stifles investment, and burdens a major metropolitan area with perpetual water insecurity.
The time for observation is over. The government must act decisively by mmediately stopping all illegal mining activities and hold defiant companies accountable to protect these critical river systems.
It must also aunch intensive, government-backed programmes to rehabilitate the damaged rivers and surrounding ecosystems.
The government must also accelerate the construction of the Glassblock Dam
Located in Matabeleland South, the proposed Glassblock Dam has been dentified as the essential medium-term solution to the city’s perennial water problems. It is therefore important that this project must proceed without any further administrative delays.
Bulawayo's water crisis is a predictable disaster in slow motion. The authorities possess the evidence, the legal instruments, and the solutions.
What is missing is the urgent political will to prevent this ticking time bomb from exploding into a full-blown humanitarian crisis.
