Open letter to Harare City Council

THIS is an open letter to the responsible authorities at the Harare City Council.

Let it be known to you dear sirs and madams that the absence of clean running water in most suburbs contributes immensely to the upsurge of typhoid.

Your failure to collect refuse on time has and will also contribute to an outbreak of other diseases like cholera and malaria.

I will not just try to highlight your failures because they are many and cannot be exhausted on this platform.

But I offer my free suggestions which I think should be considered.

The Harare City Council must ensure that the water and sanitation crisis is resolved immediately before more lives are lost to this typhoid outbreak and other diseases that come through dirty water.

In as much as I feel the move to come up with an inter-ministerial committee to deal with the typhoid outbreak is a welcome one, key health and sanitation issues need to be looked at, for example the improvement of water supply to all the suburbs being one of the prerequisites.

Chasing away vendors in Harare’s Central Business District does not solve the typhoid problem because most of them sell their products in the evening, of which Harare City Council officers would have gone home.

It is common knowledge that by-laws go to sleep at dusk.

The issue of vendors is also a tricky one in the sense that in as much as we need to ensure that they take sanitation issues seriously when selling their wares, it is equally important not to infringe on their livelihoods since most people are in that sector.

You are just failing as a Council and stop the blame game on vendors.

You have left most of the drainage systems blocked by refuse, which in turn is becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes and a recipe for cholera.

Cholera and malaria are looming if you don’t take any action. James Farmer Jr, Kuwadzana 1