Mufudzi Moyo
HARARE, Aug 9 2010 (IPS) – The memories of Zimbabwe s 2008-2009 cholera outbreak are fresh in the minds of everyone except the people who have the safety of the country s water in their hands.
Two years ago this month, a deadly cholera epidemic took hold in Zimbabwe. By the time it had burned itself out in the middle of 2009, as many as 4,000 people were dead.
The risk of another such outbreak remains, says Steady Kangata, spokesperson for the country s Environmental Management Agency. Most local authorities pump stations and biofilters are not functional and hence most of them have resorted to diverting raw sewerage straight into the natural water sources, causing a health time bomb.
In April, a typhoid outbreak in Mabvuku, one of Harare s high density suburbs, swiftly infected 300 people, killing eight. Cholera and typhoid are just two of the serious public health threats caused by contamination of drinking water and food which comes into contact with sewage.
Previously, local authorities handled sewerage by first separating solids from effluent, then making manure with the solids while treating the liquid before discharging it into the environment.
But according to Kangata, municipal authorities are now simply dumping everything into water courses, prompting EMA to initiate legal action against several councils. The watchdog has accused the councils of Harare, Mutare, Marondera, Chinhoyi and others of contaminating water.
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The way these authorities are managing the liquid waste is really pathetic, Kangata said. Most of them are treating waste management as a peripheral issue which they only attend to it after all other things including the payment of their hefty salaries are done.
Simbarashe Moyo, chairperson of the Combined Harare Residents Association shares Kangata s view. He complains that Harare City Council officials are lining their pockets with water and sewerage money.
Residents are meeting their side of the equation by paying rates which are too expensive anyway, especially considering that some ratepayers are still expected to pay even as they go for prolonged periods without water, Moyo told IPS.
But what do we get in return? We get industrial waste and raw sewerage flowing into the rivers and then back into our taps scaring us from drinking the water lest we fall sick.
In his recent fiscal review, Finance Minister Tendai Biti suggested that a percentage of the money collected for water and waste treatment be ringfenced from general budgets and reinvested directly back into the sector.
Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda said the Harare City Council endorses Biti s suggestion, but he refused blame for the current state of affairs, saying his council is doing everything in its power to revive infrastructure it found in shambles.
The two sewerage treatment plants in this city had been dysfunctional for two to three years before we came into office in 2008, he said.
Another challenge is that the population has ballooned beyond the capacity of the plants.
Masunda said it was everyone s duty to curb pollution of water sources, adding that individuals and households also contributed to the problem in their own small ways.
Treating Harare s waste water requires the use of unusual amounts of chemicals, costing around two million dollars each month; the reasons for this include industrial pollution, but the habits of individual households who dispose of all manner of substances into the city s sewers add to the challenge of managing the waste safely.
Masunda said his council is not among those enriching themselves at the expense of improving service delivery.
The Urban Councils Act says 70 percent of money from rates should go to service provision, and 30 percent to administration, but the common view is that local authorities are spending the bulk of the money on salaries, with little left for service delivery. Reports indicate that the mayor was recently summoned by government over his alleged opposition to a proposed cut to top council officials salaries; some of whom are believed to earn as much as $15,000 U.S. per month.
Water development minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo defends local authorities, pointing out that the poor state of the water sector can be traced back to the previous Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front government s failure to maintain equipment for over a decade.
Nkomo said over the past eight months, his ministry has been urging municipalities to create separate water accounts so they can reinvest water money into the sector. Some have responded, but it is too early to assess the success of this measure.
He also said his ministry was engaging government and the donor community for assistance.
But money allocated for water in the fiscus is a drop in the ocean, he said. We need about $10 billion to answer all the country s water problems.
Harare alone needs about $254 million, Bulawayo about $100 million and most of the remaining cities and towns also need millions each to restore normal service delivery.
But as it is, nothing new was allocated to water in the recent budget review; there was no increase to the amounts previously allocated.
Presenting his 2010 budget in December 2009, Biti allocated a total of $109 million for water and sanitation infrastructure countrywide.
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