Gweru left with 3 months' water supply

Gweru City Council has introduced water rationing, amid indications that the city's supply dam Gwenoro is now left with only three months' water supply. The development has seen suburbs such as Mkoba 19 and 20 going for months without water.

Gweru Mayor Councillor Josiah Makombe said the local authority has introduced water rationing.

"To save the situation, we have decided to introduce water rationing and we are in process of coming up with a programme to manage existing supplies and to share the equitably.

"The situation is bad but we are trying to make sure that every suburb gets water as scheduled," he said.

Clr Makombe said the local authority will also drill an additional 20 boreholes in residential areas to augment the already existing boreholes which he said were now overwhelmed.

"Now that we have introduced water rationing, as council, we agreed that we need to come with measures to cushion residents during water rationing, and one of the measures includes drilling 20 boreholes throughout the city," he said.

Clr Makombe said the boreholes will be using electric power to pump water and will be linked to the municipality's water system.

"The type of boreholes we want to drill will be connected to the city's water infrastructure and they will use electricity to pump water. The pumped water will then be channelled through water pipes to various suburbs so that we can still bill the consumers," he said.

Clr Makombe said they were working with partners in the boreholes project.

"We are working very hard together with our partners to make this project a success," he said.