Garwe says Byo’s water comes from dams, not rivers as MPs raise mining concerns

Local Government and Public Works Minister, Daniel Garwe, told Parliament on Wednesday that Zimbabwe’s bulk water sources are dams, not rivers, in a surprising response that prompted audible interjections from MPs and exposed unanswered questions about the protection of catchments that feed the country’s reservoirs. 

The exchange came during National Assembly question time after Bulawayo North MP, Minenhle Gumede, asked the Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development what government policy was to make sure there was “sustainable and reliable water supplies amid recurrent droughts, ageing infrastructure and activities threatening water catchment areas.”

Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi, responding on behalf of the Agriculture Minister, said Zimbabwe had sufficient water bodies but acknowledged infrastructure remained a challenge.

He said the government was focusing on increasing irrigation, constructing more water bodies and drilling boreholes to strengthen water security, particularly in rural areas.

Gumede narrowed the question to Bulawayo, asking how the government was balancing immediate measures to protect existing water supplies with long-term projects such as the Gwayi-Shangani Dam.

Ziyambi said Bulawayo had sufficient raw water, arguing the immediate challenge was its “conveyance and distribution infrastructure.”

He referred the issue to the local government minister who said the government was undertaking a nationwide water reticulation rehabilitation programme.

Minister Garwe said the programme had started in Harare, where old pipes, including asbestos pipes, were replaced after authorities determined about 60 percent of processed water was lost through non-revenue leakages.

“We have started working in Chinhoyi as we speak and hopefully by the end of this month, we will have finished rehabilitating Chinhoyi as well. From there, we are going to be moving to Bulawayo and then it can spread to all other urban areas,” he said.

However, Emakhandeni-Luveve MP, Discent Collins Bajila shifted the debate from the pipes carrying treated water to the infrastructure and environmental conditions affecting the sources of bulk water.

“There are challenges around the sources of bulk water and the infrastructure of that bulk water, around the issues of riverbank mining and what government has put in place to make sure that these sources of water, these rivers that get the water to our dams are properly safeguarded,” said the MP, pointing specifically to riverbank mining.

“Particularly in these times, where we have got a lot of mining activities and at the same time we are having climate change effects that show us that we are going to be having less and less water coming into our dams.”

It was at this point that Garwe drew a distinction between rivers and the government’s recognised sources of bulk water.

“Our sources of bulk water are not rivers,” Garwe said. “Whilst I appreciate the issues that have been raised by the Member of Parliament, our sources of bulk water are not rivers. Our sources of bulk water are dams.”

The statement prompted audible interjections from MPs, forcing the Temporary Speaker to call for order and allow the minister to continue.

Garwe maintained the government did not have situations where mining was taking place in areas affecting the water bodies used as bulk sources.

However, he acknowledged that riverbed mining was a serious concern and said the government was already dealing with the issue through a Cabinet committee.

“The issue of riverbed mining is a matter that the Government is seized with,” Garwe said.

He said the committee was chaired by the Minister of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Water Resources Development and included the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works, among others.

According to Garwe, the Ministry of Mines had been directed to ban riverbed mining going forward.

The exchange nevertheless left unanswered questions about the relationship between rivers, catchment areas and the dams on which cities such as Bulawayo depend.

While dams serve as reservoirs from which cities can draw bulk water, the sustainability of those reservoirs depends on water flowing into them through rivers, streams, groundwater and rainfall within their catchment areas.

This makes the protection of upstream catchments particularly important in a country facing increasingly erratic rainfall and prolonged droughts.

In Bulawayo, the issue carries additional weight because the city has endured years of water shortages while awaiting the completion of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam project, which the government has presented as the long-term solution to the city’s water crisis.

Ziyambi said the government was confident there was sufficient raw water for Bulawayo and pointed to the Gwayi-Shangani aquifer area, where boreholes could provide additional water.

However the parliamentary exchange highlighted that protecting a dam itself is not necessarily the same as protecting the catchment system that keeps it supplied.