Bulawayo Mayor, Councillor David Coltart, has called for the speedy rehabilitation of the Nyamandlovu Aquifer, which is currently operating at 10 percent capacity, to improve the supply of water around the city.
Cllr Coltart was speaking at the Bulawayo Full Council meeting held Wednesday at the council chambers as councillors deliberated the state of water supply in the city.
The mayor said the Future Water Supplies and Water Action Committee must work closely with the Engineering department to create a detailed report focused on the work required to maximise water supply from the aquifer before the end of this rainy season.
“My understanding is the aquifer is operating at 10 percent capacity when it has a capability of supplying 20 million megalitres of water per day,” Coltart said.
“This means we are only getting five million megalitres per day or way less. This must be the water committee’s priority focus so that we can get everything fixed before the end of the rainy season.”
Cllr Coltart said this was a matter of immediate priority.
“We need a detailed report on the current state of the Nyamandlovu Aquifer. We need to know how many boreholes are functional, how many are not and if there is any property that has been stolen or vandalised. This report needs to be accompanied by the estimated costs of fixing or replacing equipment where necessary,” said the mayor.
“The committee must work closely with the engineering department so that we can ascertain that the information we have is correct and we are not speaking from a point of ignorance. If we get a detailed report especially on the cost of fixing these problems then we can look at our budget, lobby the government and lobby development banks to provide the necessary funds to do the work.”
Cllr Coltart said more operational woes are experienced at other supply dams and this has a crippling effect on the availability of the precious liquid in the city.
“We know plans for the duplication of the Insiza, Thuli, Ncema pipeline exist, tied to that is the renovation of Ncema Water Treatment Plant, tied to that, the current pipeline from Mtshabezi to Mzingwane is insufficient,” said the mayor.
“I’m told that it was badly designed but not by this council. I’m also informed we need a higher capacity pipeline direct from Mtshabezi to Ncema water treatment plant. We must also look at the Thuli Reservoir and double its capacity.”
Deputy mayor, Cllr Donaldson Mabuto weighed in, reiterating that the government must declare Bulawayo a water crisis city so that the local authority may access funds to finance the rehabilitation of water sources.
“As a city we have a responsibility of supplying water to the residents. I think we need to revisit the conversations we had with the central government about declaring Bulawayo a water crisis city. That way we can source adequate funding and resolve our water crisis and the short-term mitigatory measures to be implemented for us to get water. We need the government to come in so that it can fund us accordingly,” Cllr Mabuto said.
Another councillor suggested that the council dualises the pipeline from Insiza to Nyankuni and also clean all malfunctioning filters at Ncema Water Treatment works, most of which are operating at 40 percent capacity or less, affecting the city water supply.
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