Residents blast city fathers over worsening water crisis
BULAWAYO’S water situation has reached alarming and desperate levels with residents accusing city fathers of poor planning and misplaced priorities following a shock move to suspend water supply for two weeks without notice.
City residents have been enduring a 144-hour water shedding schedule until last week when council announced plans to shelve the timetable till the end of the month citing water supply challenges.
A timetable on the restoration of water supplies released on Monday showed that only nine high-lying suburbs were to receive water by yesterday, leaving thousands of dwellers without the precious liquid.
Residents queued for hours on end late into the night on Monday to fetch water from the few available boreholes and other unsafe wells.
“Why can’t Bulawayo City Council (BCC) put on hold land grabs, get water storage tanks and look for trucks to dispense water at crucial water points?” Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association (BPRA) coordinator Emmanuel Ndlovu asked.
“This has exposed a lot of underlying inconsistencies on the part of the council. Of course, we know that Bulawayo receives minimal rainfall but council’s poor planning and management has accelerated the adverse effects of climate change.”
Town clerk Christopher Dube said he was attending meetings when contacted for comment yesterday while mayor Solomon Mguni was not answering his mobile phone.
In a statement last week, Dube said the water interruption “is due to prolonged time needed for the city’s reservoirs to recover” following the theft of electricity supply cables.
Consultants hired by the government blamed the council for lacking technical know-how and capacity to pump water, insisting that the remaining supply dams Insiza, Mayfair, Inyankuni and Mtshabezi had capacity to supply water to the city for 14 months.
Bulawayo United Residents Association chairperson Winos Dube appealed to the government to declare the city a water crisis area.
Council has also been pleading for declaration of the city as a water crisis area to give the local authority leeway to mobilise resources to implement strategies to solve the water crisis, but without success.
PROVINCIAL magistrate Charity Maphosa on Monday postponed to September 21 ruling in the matter in which former Midlands Provincial Affairs minister Jason Machaya is accused of criminal abuse of office after the latter failed to appear in court due to ill health.
Machaya’s lawyer Alec Muchadehama produced a medical affidavits which showed that the former
AN independent electoral watchdog has urged the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) to stop filling the vacant parliamentary seats but await the outcome of Supreme Court appeals filed by recalled MDC Alliance legislators.
The call came after Zec announced at the weekend plans to fill 15 vacant seats arising from the recalling of MDC Alliance legislators by the Thokozani Khupe-led MDC T.
Zec said it was empowered to do so in terms of Section 39 of the Electoral act (Chapter 2:13), but the minister underwent a surgical procedure on August 8 and his doctor recommended a two-week bed rest for him.
Machaya is co-charged with exMidlands provincial planning officer, Chisainyerwa Chibururu.
Machaya (65) and Chibururu (47) are alleged to have fraudulently acquired stands in the Mapfungautsi residential area of Gokwe.
Both have, however, denied the charges.
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) has warned again the move.
Khupe recalled MDC Alliance legislators and councillors after assuming control of the party following the court’s dismissal of the opposition leader Nelson Chamisa as an illegitimate president.
The process of replacing the recalled Members of Parliament is coming at a time conflicting decisions have been handed down by different judges of the High Court.
In one case, a High Court judge granted a provisional order interdicting the replacement of some recalled proportional representation MPs and in another similar matter, a different High Court judge
It is the State’s case that sometime in 2013, Gokwe Town Council requested for 3 000 residential stands around Mapfungautsi Extension from the Local Government ministry and the request was granted.
Machaya, as chairperson of the provincial lands committee, allegedly made a request of commonage allocation from the 3 000 stands, which entitled him to receive 10% of the allocated stands in line with the commonage law. dismissed the urgent application.
“In both instances, we understand that the matters were taken on appeal. In our view, it would have been prudent to await the finalisation of the appeals in the Supreme Court before initiating the replacement process,” Zesn argued.
However, Zec chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana said the electoral body was just following the law, adding the filling of vacant seats could only be halted by a court order.
“The commission has no discretion as to whether the process should or should not commence. Once notice is given and received by Zec as prescribed in section 39 (3) of the Electoral Act, the processes
The State further alleges that during the period between 2011 and 2017, Machaya abused his office powers and demanded 1 000 residential stands well knowing that he was supposed to only get 300 stands.
As a result, Gokwe Town Council lost revenue in respect of 700 stands.
It is further alleged that Machaya hired a private land developer, Striations World Marketing Property Developers, to service the stands. stipulated in sections 39(4) to 39(8) must be initiated and carried out lest Zec be in breach of the law,” Silaigwana said.
“In simple terms, Zec is bound to follow the provisions of the Electoral Act unless a court order expressly enjoins it to refrain from doing so. The Zec has received no such order from the court and must thus pursue its mandate as per dictates of the law.”
According to Zesn, the Zec should allow for engagements with stakeholders even under the current lockdown to “improve understanding by electoral stakeholders of how the electoral calendar has been and will likely be affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”