20 years later, water project yet to be completed
“We don’t have water to give you, sorry, try elsewhere!”
The country’s second largest city, Bulawayo, has been facing water challenges for years and the situation keeps getting worse; but still the powers that be are not giving the issue the priority it deserves.
I came face-to-face with the sad reality on Monday when my car started overheating and the radiator required water. I was driving past the high-density suburb of Sizinda when the problem occurred and had to quickly look for water; that’s when I realised every drop really does count!
At the first house I knocked on, there were only kids and when I asked for water, they told me they couldn’t assist. I understood. I went next door and the woman did not mince her words, they were struggling with water and were not in a position to just give it away. “Try elsewhere,” she said with a straight face. I was shocked but somehow understood.
As I was leaving her yard, walking back to my car, a young man came to my rescue but at a cost of course. He quickly dashed to his house across the street and came back with five litres of water. I thanked him with R10 and both of us were happy: he had made a quick buck and I got the help I desperately needed.
The whole experience brought home just how dire the situation is. Water shedding in some suburbs lasts for days if not weeks. Residents now depend on buying or getting water from nearby boreholes; surely that’s not the life that city dwellers envisaged.
It also made me realise just how the governments, past and present, take the water issue in Bulawayo for granted.
I remember back in 2004 when I was a reporter with the state owned, Chronicle, writing a ‘big’ story on the construction of the Gwayi-Shangani dam and how it would bring an end to the water crisis in Bulawayo within five years.
Two decades later, the dam is still under construction. The way things are going, it’s a project that’s highly unlikely to be completed in our lifetime.
Mind you, since construction began 21 years ago, budget has always been allocated every financial year and every year a new deadline for completion is set.
In 2018, a few months after coming into office, President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to do everything in his power to ensure the project is finished by the end of 2019. We are now in mid-2025!
Judge for yourself if there is any sincerity in ending Bulawayo’s water woes. It’s enough to make you weep; but then again, we can’t afford to waste the water!
