Bulawayo dam levels remain critical

BULAWAYO's dam levels continue to drop, amid fears that the infamous water shedding regime will continue to ensure the availability of water supplies through the year 2014.

As at Friday, the city's dams were 34,8 percent full despite recent rains.

The bulk of the water is at Mtshabezi Dam which is 92 percent full, Insiza Mayfair is 48 percent full, Lower Ncema is 19,5 percent full, Umzingwane 11,9 percent full while the two decommissioned dams, Upper Ncema and Inyankuni are 2,4 and 4,4 percent full respectively.

The city's daily consumption is pegged at 126 megalitres a day.

When the city launched its water shedding programme on 27 July 2012, the dams were 43,1 percent full, with Insiza Mayfair having the highest quantity of 79,4 percent followed by Lower Ncema at 45,9 percent, Inyankuni at 13,2 percent, Upper Ncema at 2,6 percent and Umzingwane at 2,4 percent.

Ironically, just last week, the Bulawayo City Council announced the relaxation of the 48 hour water shedding regime during the festive season.

However, the city's mayor, Councillor Martin Moyo, said in an interview that residents need not panic as the City Fathers still remained hopeful that the city was still yet to experience more rains as according to the country's meteorological department predictions the rain season was only set to come to an end in March.

He, however, called on residents not only to pray for more rains but to continue using their water sparingly until such a time when the city recorded a figure above 60 percent in supply dams.

"Residents should not necessarily panic because I believe the figure is better than last year, even in early December 2013 that level had dropped to close to 20 percent meaning we have now seen it rise to 34 percent and for that we should be grateful.

"What should also give our residents some breathing space is that this is the middle of the rain season so hopefully, come March 2014, we should be talking a different tone, all our residents need to help us do is pray for more rains and also use their water sparingly," said Clr Moyo.

He said over the course of the year it was their hope that they also implement key small term projects which would see them easing the water burden being experienced in the city.

"No one wants water shedding, even for us as city fathers it is one painful route that we hoped we could easily avoid, so during the course of the year we will push to implement such projects as the rehabilitation of the Nyamandlovu boreholes and the Epping forest borehole project, we feel that these projects are affordable and very possible mainly as a short term intervention.

"However, there are some projects that include the National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project and the duplication of the Insiza pipeline, those are long term projects that need more funding mechanisms but we shouldn't just be scared off by the required figures instead if we take it one step at a time we will reach our goal," said the mayor.

Environment, Water and Climate Minister Cde Saviour Kasukuwere said the city's water problems were one of the Government's main priorities as set by the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation (Zim Asset) document.

He said after last year's completion of the Mtshabezi -Umzingwane pipeline link project their next step was the rehabilitation of 56 Nyamandlovu aquifer boreholes, which he said would help augment the city's water supply.

The city introduced the water shedding exercise in July 2012 in a bid to conserve the limited supplies in the city's supply dams. The Mtshabezi-Umzingwane pipeline link project was viewed as a short-term solution to the city's perennial water problems.