Suburban
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
HARARE Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume on Tuesday this week presented the State of the City address at Harare House in Gunhill with the city’s water supply, refuse collection and revenue collection topping the agenda of his delivery.
Cllr Mafume said there is need for the city to move away from the post-paid system of revenue collection which is resulting in the money that it is owed by residents being eroded.
“Financial performance as of 1 January 2022 to 30 June 2022, total collections summary from January to June potential was $28 billion.
“Revenue collected in the same period is $15 billion.
“Our collection efficiency remains less 50 percent of our potential.
“The $28,8 billion collected as at June 2022 is inclusive of the legacy debt brought forward to 2022.
“We started here with a legacy debt of $16,8 billion, which has since been eroded by the hyperinflationary environment.
“Most of the money owed to us is being eroded by inflation.
“We are one of the few service providers that are still doing a post-paid system.
“This is unsustainable in an inflationary environment and in an era where people no longer want to pay,” he said.
Cllr Mafume said water production has gone down and now stands at 295 megalitres, down from 470 megalitres per day.
“Our production at Morton Jaffray Waterworks is 470 megalitres per day but these days it has been suppressed to 295 megalitres per day.
“We are carrying out some works on the Morton Jaffray plant to optimise production.
“We will continue to take measures to increase water production.
“We have a target to make sure that by September and towards the end of the year, we will be averaging that 470 megalitres.
“Our quality of water is 97,2 percent in terms of quality.
“Unfortunately, 60 percent of the water we produce is non- revenue water and we will have to engage a better system to get the revenue back.
“In other words, we need to maybe seriously consider issues around (prepaid) water meters, efficiency and penalty for debtors,” he said.
Cllr Mafume said the southern-western suburbs receive water five days a week while the eastern suburbs such as Mabvuku and Greendale get water two days a week.
He said southern suburbs receive water four days a week while the central business district gets water five days a week. Eastern and northern suburbs get supplies for four days and north-western suburbs (Borrowdale, Hatcliffe) have water two days a week.
Cllr Mafume said there is need to speed up the construction of dams such as Kunzvi, Muda and Musami.
“Then we need to have a canal coming from Marondera or the eastern Highlands that comes to the eastern part of Greater Harare and that canal will be about 70 to 100 kilometers long.
“That will give us water that is easy to treat and that is fresh.
“If we don’t do that, the whole of Goromonzi, Ruwa etc are becoming towns and satellites of Harare so we need that done as soon as possible otherwise water is going to be a precious commodity for this city,” he said.
Councillor Jacob Mafume at the SOCA.
Cllr Mafume said the water treatment chemical bill hovers between $35 million to $40 million per month depending on the prevailing exchange rate.
He said the city owes ZETDC $1,5 billion.
“We consume a lot of power for water treatment plants.
“We will however continue to engage the Minister of Energy and Power Development and our parliamentarians to look into this issue where we build infrastructure and it’s taken,” said Cllr Mafume.
He said the city has experienced a perpetual water crisis due to high demand.
“We supply Harare and the Greater Harare area.
“And the demand for the Greater Harare area is 800 mega litres per day,” said Cllr Mafume.
He said the city is operating with 10 instead of 46 refuse compactors.
Cllr Mafume said the city bought three compactors using their own funds.
“We were hoping that if devolution funds had come, we would have bought more compactors.
“We have also introduced tipper trucks because there are many illegal dumps,” he said.
Cllr Mafume said there is need to change the architecture of the municipality’s waste management system so that it is turned into recycling.
He said council is engaging central Government so that the city is given land to dump solid waste following the conversion of their dumpsite at Warren Hills into a museum.
“We are also in dire need of a hazardous waste management dumpsite.
“We used to put our hazardous waste; waste that comes from factories, clinics and so forth at Warren Hills but now it has been turned into a museum.
“It has more harmful effects than other recyclable waste,” said Cllr Mafume.
He said the city’s strategic business units such as Easi Park were doing better than its other business units.
Cllr Mafume said their quarry, which produces tar and other raw materials for road maintenance is performing below expectation.
“We have given a programme and timetable to the quarry.
“The quarry is the one that does the roads.
“It is supposed to make tar.
“It is supposed to give us the stones that we use when we are making tarred roads.
“It has been performing below expectation.
“We turned it into a private limited but that has not made it successful.
“I had a chat with the chairperson of that company yesterday (Monday) and gave them a timeframe of when they will turnaround the quarry when we should be expecting material and raw materials to do our roads that have become potholed.
“And as a strategic business unit, they have got the asphalt plant working.
“They now have got the crusher machine working but what they haven’t given us is the product.
“And I was assured that beginning of August, we will be getting material in bigger volumes than what we have been getting,” he said.
Cllr Mafume said the city is also looking at many other business units that are housed under Sunshine Holdings to see how they can make dividends for the local authority.
