Due to low wages, Bulawayo residents are no longer keen to take up part-time jobs under the community working groups initiative set up by the local authority.
The matter arose as councillors were discussing stormwater drainage blockages during the rainy season during a full council meeting on Wednesday.
Ward 25 councillor Mzama Dube noted that some residents were blocking storm drainages and this affected the smooth flow of water.
“Residents fill up10kg sacks with dog waste to close drainage systems and they also do this in the precast wall weep holes where water is supposed to pass, they put cement and stones to close those weep holes where water is supposed to pass,” said Cllr Dube.
Ward 10 councillor Sinikiwe Mutanda said the other challenge was that residents who construct precast walls around their properties were not putting weep holes.
“Last week, the fire brigade was called to open weep holes for water to pass through, I now urge the residents of Bulawayo to leave weep walls for easy water passage during the rainy season,” she said.
Ward 17 councillor Sikhululekile Moyo said there is a need to form a disaster management committee to deal with emergency road disasters in the city.
“There is need for another committee to be formed for disaster management because when there is a cyclone, roads flood and drainage fills up we end up not knowing what to do as the engineering department will be overwhelmed. It becomes hard for residents as their houses end up flooding,” said Cllr Moyo.
She said during the rainy days, the storm drains do not work properly, “within three hours we will be in a crisis and we fail to be functional and the fire brigade will be overwhelmed.”
In response, the chairperson of the Environmental Management and Engineering Services Committee Alderman Siboniso Khumalo revealed that the community working groups doing the menial jobs of clearing the storm drainages are no longer interested in the job as they are complaining about low wages.
“There is a time ward by ward where we clear storm water drains as residents but we now have a challenge that residents no longer want to do the job, they are now complaining that the money is little. When those drainages close up and flood residents’ houses, they also complain,” said Alderman Khumalo
