Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has dismissed claims that its supply dams are silted, saying there is no need for desiltation despite growing interest from individuals offering to carry out the process.
Council officials said the city’s dams remain fully functional, with no evidence of silt accumulation which may affect water abstraction systems.
Acting Director for Water and Sanitation, Engineer Kwanele Sibanda, said assertions that the dams are heavily silted are unfounded, as key infrastructure continues to operate efficiently.
“Our dams are not silted. If that were the case we would have had situations where our abstraction towers are covered by silt, but that has not been the case. Over the years all our abstraction towers have been functioning well,” she said.
Town Clerk Christopher Dube echoed the same sentiments, noting that the local authority has received numerous proposals from individuals and companies seeking to undertake desiltation works.
“We would like to send a clear message, as the engineer has explained, that none of our dams are silted. We have been under pressure from numerous people who have approached us with expressions of interest, saying they want to desilt the dams,” said Dube.
Dube said the largest challenge that the local authority is facing is land degradation in catchment areas, largely driven by illegal artisanal mining.
“The biggest challenge that we have instead is that of land degradation at our catchment areas. This is where we struggle the most because the dug-up pits affect the amount of water inflow into the dams,” Dube said.
“If it wasn’t for the illegal mining activities, our dams would be having more water due to all the heavy rains that we received during this rainy season.”
Despite these challenges, the city has recorded significant improvements in dam levels following a favourable 2025/2026 rainy season.
Engineer Sibanda said Insiza Dam, the city’s largest water supply source with a capacity of 173 million cubic metres, is now about 87 to 88 percent full.
“That is quite a comfortable amount for us as a city in terms of water supply,” she said.
She added that Upper Ncema Dam is now 56 percent full, while Umzingwane Dam has reached 48 percent capacity after being decommissioned in November 2023 and only beginning to refill during the current rainy season.
“The whole of the 2024 season we did not get any water from Umzingwane Dam,” Sibanda said.
She noted that the improved dam levels will ease Bulawayo’s water supply situation.