NGO petitions Parly over water crisis

THE Women Institute of Development (WID) has petitioned Parliament to urgently intervene and nudge government to hammer out a long-lasting solution for Bulawayo’s perennial water problems.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Jacob Mudenda on Wednesday acknowledged receipt of the petition which he said would be looked into by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Lands and Agriculture and the Local Government Committee.

“On July 22, 2020, Parliament of Zimbabwe received a petition from the Women Institute of Development beseeching Parliament to engage the government regarding the need to urgently address the Bulawayo water crisis to ensure the promotion of the right to safe, clean and potable water to the residents,” Mudenda said.

“The petition has since been referred to the Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water and Rural Resettlement and Local Government and Public Works,” he said.

Bulawayo has had perennial water challenges which have seen residents going for weeks on end without the precious liquid at a time 50% of the city’s supply dams have been decommissioned with the remainder likely to go dry up before the onset of the rainy season.

Recently, 13 people succumbed to water-borne diseases while over 2 000 were infected after drinking contaminated water in the city’s high-density suburbs.

Local Government deputy minister Marian Chombo told the House that government was seized with the matter.

“We are trying to address the problem to make sure that they get water, but we are putting in place longterm measures to make sure that we will not have that perennial problem of water in Bulawayo,” she said.

Chombo said the Zambezi Water Project, which has been touted as the panacea to the city’s water crisis, did not fall under her ministry.