Council fails to address water crisis in 37 days

On 26th January the Suburban published a front page article about my visit to the City of Harare Water Department, at Old Mutual House, four days earlier, to submit a list of 39 Ward 17 householders who have not had municipal potable water supply for over 20 years.

That story followed another related report on the Suburban front page a week earlier, about a CoH Water official denying that any Ward 17 resident had been deprived of water for two decades.

Unfortunately, Acting Director for Water Engineer Richard Kunyadini was not available when I visited, so I left the hard copy document behind for his attention. I subsequently e-mailed the list to his office, along with a covering letter in which I explained what the 39 names were about.

My e-mail was copied to Harare Mayor, Councillor Jacob Mafume, Ward 17 Councillor, Happymore Gotora and Acting Regional Manager (Region 5), Ms Marian Mverechena.

When I finally caught up with Eng Kunyadini via WhatsApp, he advised me to resubmit my document to the CoH (City of Harare) Corporate Communications manager (Stanley Gama) at Town House, which I did, on Thursday, 25th January.

Thirty seven days since my visit to Eng Kunyadini’s office and 34 days since my visit to Town House I have not received so much as an acknowledgement, let alone a proper reply to my communication. Perhaps they don’t have a decent answer?

As I argued in my letter to Eng Kunyadini, it is incredible, unconscionable and unacceptable that any Harare resident should be indefinitely deprived of water; and then told that they are reporting nonsense.

City of Harare staff must go out and verify the situation at the 39 Avondale Ridge and Sentosa addresses supplied, for starters, and correct their records accordingly. Because residents have no reason to lie. And their water meters have not moved.

There is no doubt that there are other residents in those two suburbs, similarly affected.

Avondale and Sentosa residents would now very much like to know, not so much why they still do not get water, as a matter of fact, but how soon water supply will be restored to them, so they can revert to normal lives again.

Twenty years and counting is unacceptably long, to be discriminated against and made to wait by a municipal authority mandated to supply potable water to all residents.— John Vekris