Woes mount in Harare

Health scare has hit Harare after the City Council revealed that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has stopped supplying them with the much needed foreign currency to purchase water cleaning chemicals from suppliers.

Said the Council on Thursday, "Harare City Council is no longer accessing foreign currency from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for the procurement of water treatment chemicals. Suppliers have to source their own forex at the interbank rate on a willing seller willing buyer basis."

Last week Harare had a shutdown if water supply for three days.

Business tycoon Mutumwa Mawere lamented the development saying the suppliers will now have to go out of their way to get foreign currency.

"Can someone decode what this means? To me, it means if you are a foreign-based supplier, it is no longer possible to invoice in the currency of the supplier but the currency of Zimbabwe implying that the supplier will be paid in RTGS and then will have to secure the forex separately." Mawere said.

One social media user however accused the suppliers of misrepresenting themselves to the council tender board if they fail to deliver the cleaning chemicals because of foreign currency.

"The contracted independent chemical suppliers are private companies that were not even supposed to be considered for foreign currency allocation, there is nowhere in this world where such a practice is done, if they do not have the capacity they should have never tendered to the municipality for such services, this was a loophole for abuse and corruption. They indeed should use their bankers to source the forex...there is a lot of corruption at the municipalities and government departments."