Highfield residents blast City Council

A HEALTH hazard is looming in most of Harare’s high-density suburbs, where residents have had to contend with raw sewage flowing into their homes.

Council is failing to come up with a lasting solution to the problem, which has now been going on for decades.

Highfield residents have blasted the City Council for failing to attend to sewer bursts in the area.

There has been an increase in sewer bursts in the last few days, with raw sewage flowing into the streets.

City of Harare spokesperson, Mr Michael Chideme, acknowledged the challenge.

“We acknowledge that burst sewage pipes are a challenge but when people report we attend to it,” he said.

“At times, we change the pipes when need be, as most of the pipes are old.”

The Harare City Council has over the years continued to fall short on service delivery with uncollected garbage and unavailability of water in some parts of the capital being the order of the day.

The residents said they have made several efforts to have the sewer pipes repaired but to no avail.

“This sewer busted last year and Council is turning a blind eye to the issue which has been ongoing for a while now,” said Harare resident, Tinotenda Mahachi.

“If we ask the Council about their current position, in terms of fixing sewer leaks, they say the sewer infrastructure is old and needs to be rehabilitated.

“As residents, we are fed up with their excuses and we need to demonstrate because we are living on a health time bomb.”

He said the Council was lagging in terms of services delivery.

“The Council is supposed to prioritise the issue of service delivery.

“We, as residents, expect to see where our money goes since we are paying rates every month, but we are not getting the value of our money,” he said.

Another resident, Silas Defe, also accused Council of taking too long to attend to sewer bursts.

“Sewage has been flowing for a year now without any action,” he said.

“It has become an everyday problem as we live in such a place where raw sewage has become the order of the day.

“The City Council should come and change the pipes because originally, the pipes were meant to service a few people, but now the population has increased and so they should fix the problem.”

Defe added: “Sometimes when you call them, they come but now it has been days without them attending to the situation.”