Unlicensed backyard food outlets selling low-cost meals in Bulawayo’s central business district are worsening sewer blockages by disposing of bones and cooking fats into the city’s ageing sewer system, the local authority has said.
The City of Bulawayo says the problem is adding pressure to sewer infrastructure that already requires more than US$400 million to rehabilitate.
Speaking to CITE, the Director of Water and Sanitation Services Engineer Sikhumbuzo Ncube said the growing number of informal “sadza dollar lunch” outlets operating without proper waste disposal systems was contributing to recurring blockages.
“Of late the city centre has seen a rise in unlicensed backyard sadza dollar lunch deals. These concerns are disposing bones and fats and lipids into the CBD’s sewer network without proper requirements such as grease traps,” Ncube said.
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“This leads to an accumulation of bones and fat within the reticulation, thus contributing to blockages.”
He said the city first assessed the condition of its sewer network in 2012, when it developed the Water and Wastewater Master Plan.
“According to that Master Plan it was established that over US$400 million was needed to revamp and bring the sewer infrastructure to satisfactory operational levels,” he said.
“To date only about three percent of the value of those projects has been implemented due to lack of capital.”
Ncube said the council had pursued both international and local funding initiatives but had been unable to secure sufficient resources to overhaul the ageing network.
He cited a US$33 million African Development Bank grant received between 2016 and 2019 and a Trade Effluent and Water Recycling Indaba held earlier this year as part of those efforts.
Beyond informal food outlets, Ncube blamed recurring sewer overflows on residents disposing of unsuitable materials such as disposable nappies, bones and food waste into the sewer system.
He said some residents had removed cast-iron gully sieves designed to prevent solid waste and sand entering sewer pipes, while theft of manhole covers and vandalism of sewer infrastructure had further worsened the problem.
Water shedding and ageing sewer pipes were also contributing to frequent blockages, he said, because lower water volumes prevented sewage from flowing at self-cleansing speeds while old pipes were prone to collapse.
To respond, the council has intensified de-choking operations, replaced stolen manhole covers and engaged four Bulawayo-based contractors to clear sewer hotspots.
Ncube said the contractors had completed remedial work at 19 hotspot sites by December 2025 and were currently working at 39 more locations across the city.
He said council’s response was also being hampered by ageing equipment.
“Current council sewer vehicles are over 10 years old and have mileages of over 300,000 kilometres and are susceptible to frequent breakdowns resulting in delayed response time to sewer reports,” Ncube said.
He added that the city also needed specialised equipment, including an excavator, a tractor-loader-backhoe and CCTV inspection systems to improve maintenance of the sewer network.
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