Bulawayo grappling with burst water pipes and leaks

BULAWAYO CITY COUNCIL'S engineering department has revealed that it is grappling with burst water pipes and leaks.

Director of engineering services, Simela Dube, said the council was forced to use substandard material due to financial challenges.

"There was a backlog in leaks repairs as staff had to use substandard material to repair the leaks. Council stores are lying idle as all the stocks have been consumed. The call centre has become dysfunctional due to lack of resources," said Eng Dube.

He said burst pipes were accorded first priority over leaks. "All bursts and leaks recorded at the call centre were attended to on time if materials were readily available," said Eng Dube.

He added that a total of 100 reports on burst pipes had been received in the month of October and had been promptly attended to.

Dube said the intensity of bursts had a direct relationship to the length of reticulation mains with Magwegwe reservoir area showing the most number of bursts.

"This could be attributed to the reservoir zone having the second longest length of reticulation mains as well as consisting of several suburbs which were very old, for example Njube and Magwegwe suburbs."

Council further reported that workshops had received a total of 773 reports on water related jobs and attended to 613 leaks in October.

"The leaks occurred mainly on service lines and were due to the continued ageing of the city's water reticulation pipes.

"On the service connections, just before the meter, most of the connections were in galvanized pipes which corroded quite easily."

The local authority stated that to date, there were backlogs of 836 water related jobs and procurement of portable radios for all field staff was still in progress to further improve the system on feedback mechanisms.