Famous is the adage, “when two elephants fight it is the grass that suffers “. This has been the case amongst the Gwanda residents who have gone for days without water running through their taps, simple because ZINWA and Municipality of Gwanda cannot seem to solve their differences over the ownership of the water plant.
Before ZINWA was formed in the year 2000, provision of water service was offered by Municipalities across the country. However, with the emergence of ZINWA, it had to take, an arrangement that did not go well with the communities as there were many challenges, messed up billing system, water bursts which were taking long to be fixed, untreated water, just to mention a few. Seeing all these challenges, municipalities had to take back their water plants from ZINWA, serve for a few districts and among them, Gwanda.
The situation that is there in Gwanda now is that water is being run by two institutions, that is Municipality of Gwanda (MOG) and ZINWA, MOG acting as the middleman between ZINWA and the residents. MOG buys water from ZINWA and sell to the residents, however when there is water pipe burst, it is the duty of the council to fix and ZINWA does not care that water was lost due to pipe bursts which are now too old, all they do is to bill the Municipality for the water. The main reason now for the water shortage in Gwanda is that ZINWA has installed bulk water meters for MOG. This means, MOG has to buy a token first for ZINWA to pump water for the residents. ZINWA claims they are doing all this in order to force MOG to pay a debt they owe ZINWA up to the tune of 270 million as of February this year, which MOG has been failing to pay through the years. As the debt escalates, the Municipality is blaming residents and some government departments for failing to pay their water bills. In as much as there is some element of truth to the verdict, the Municipality itself has a role in the accumulation of the debts since without public consultations, they installed water meters to some residents which turned out to be defective hence supplying water to residents for almost free of charge an unfortunate oversight which cannot be blamed on the residence.
Gwanda is already a town riddled with problem of machete gangs hence this situation might further fuel the problem. According to Nephi Moyo a resident and also an elected ward councillor, the water challenges bedevilling Gwanda will expose the girl child and young women to a lot of abuse.
“Young women and girls whose chores are to fetch water are now at risk of being victims of machete gangs who have already terrorized the town. These girls wake up early while it is still dark to go search for water. They might be raped or even killed in the dark”, she said.
More so, the community fears the outbreak of water borne diseases and COVID 19 at large. Reason Dube, a young man who resides in ward 7 alluded that the shortage of water is also affecting youths who are unemployed and have to hustle for a living as they now spend much of their time looking for water instead of hustling for food.
“Our economic situation as youths is more of hand to mouth, hence spending more time sourcing for water has now affected our means of sourcing some sort of income to sustain our livelihoods and that of our families; We need council and ZINWA to solve this impasse lest we are found wanting as youth”, Dube said.
As a mitigation strategy councillor Nephi Moyo suggested that there is an urgent need for ZINWA to handover the water plant to the Municipality of Gwanda while they make arrangements for the debt to be paid. This move will see the municipality being able to run their own affairs directly with the residents and thereby making it possible for them to offset their debts.
“There is a government directive that ZINWA should hand over the water plant to the Municipality. ZINWA should just do that because this marriage of inconvenience is no longer working. As for the debt, negotiations and arrangements can be done while the plant has been given to its rightful owner, that is the Municipality of Gwanda. Gwanda residents should not suffer because of institutions like ZINWA which want to amass as much wealth as they can at the expense of the citizens.” Fumed Moyo.
Community Youth Development Trust has in the past sent petitions to parliament on the need to hand over the water plant to MOG. The recent petition which was sent to the Minister of State, Abednico Ncube was sent early January, with youths highlighting the need to stop ZINWA from installing bulk prepaid water meters for MOG. The organisation shall continue to lobby and advocate for the plant to be with its rightful owner and as an organisation we believe that there is no need for a third party when running social service delivery affairs, especially water. As a comparison context, Sibonginkosi Nyoni a youth residing at ward 8 alluded to how ZETDC deals directly with its clients and this has led to improved service delivery as far as provision of electricity is concerned. Hence the need to adopt such practices and tailor make them to suit the existing situation.
ENDS//
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