Mayor hails Govt for Operation Chenesa Harare
HARARE Mayor Jacob Mafume yesterday commended the Second Republic for coming to the City of Harare’s rescue through the availing of funds for water treatment chemicals and lending a hand in garbage collection, revealing that the city requires at least US$4 billion dollars to rehabilitate and upgrade the sewer system as well as ensure availability of potable water to all residents.
In an interview with ZTN Prime, Mayor Mafume said Government’s complementary efforts were going a long way in assisting the City of Harare.
Currently the country has been grappling with the recurrent Cholera outbreak, which Mayor Mafume said would be decisively dealt with if Government and the City of Harare continue working hand in glove.
“We have had a good start with the refuse collection and water situation, lets take what we are learning from that process and move forward.
“Well we are trying to manage the cholera, we are trying to manage its all over the city right now. During the festive season as you know people visit each other and move across, people converge in Harare coming from outside the country.
“The Cholera epidemic has been ripping the region for two to three years now and has finally caught up with the city of Harare due to travel and also the conditions in terms of sewer bursts, garbage and so forth so for now we have had accelerated cases but we are trying to make sure that we are able to contain and decrease the reports and infections and sometimes re-infections. “Our sewer network needs to be worked on, we are looking at rolling out a plan and works. So we need to be able to rehabilitate and expand our sewer works remember this city was designed for about 500 thousand people and its now close to 3 million people staying within Harare and the sewer networks for all these areas have not been upgraded significantly to match the growth in population and also coupled with that is the availability of potable water,” he said.
Mayor Mafume divulged that Harare’s sewer network needed US$1 billion while the water network needed at least US$3 billion.
All this, he said, was “doable” and would ensure improved living standards for Harare residents.
“We need to expand the water works to be able to give water. We need in excess of US$1 billion just for the sewer system to expand the sewer works. We will need to upgrade our sewer system and also the treatment, we need to turn that into biogas, electricity, energy, fertiliser and we need to purify it a bit more than what we have been doing.
“Yes, Government is helping us, recently we have had complementary efforts we received in total of US$2,4 million since they announced that they will assist us with the chemicals.
“We have also been chipping in with our own funds and that complementarity is what is needed to move the country forward.
“Water goes into billions US$3 billion, US$4 billion, its doable and its an ecosystem, for you to give water you need to store it at Manayame, we need to get the water stored in Muchekeranwa,” he said.