Gwanda council to stop supplying water treatment chemicals to Zinwa

GWANDA Municipality says it will stop supplying water treatment chemicals to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) once its stocks, which are enough to last just a week, run out. 
In an interview with 'The Chronicle', the Town Clerk, Mr Gilbert Mlilo, said once the town's stocks of chemicals, projected to last until next week run out, it would stop supplying chemicals to Zinwa.
"We have been supplying Zinwa with water treatment chemicals for some time now but we are not seeing the benefit. Zinwa continues to charge us high tariffs for water despite the fact that we have been supplying them with water treatment chemicals," he said.
Gwanda, like other local authorities, has been getting water treatment chemicals from Unicef, which stopped in March.
The gold-mining town, unlike other towns, is supplied with treated water, instead of raw water, by Zinwa.
The standoff between the council and Zinwa pertaining to the takeover of the administration of  water treatment has remained unresolved.
Mr Mlilo said as soon as the water chemicals are finished it would then become the obligation of Zinwa to source the chemicals on its own.
"At the moment the council has not taken over the administration of water treatment but once we have taken over we will be buying raw water from Zinwa," he said.
Last year council entered into a partnership with the French Red Cross and the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society which resulted in the French Red Cross rehabilitating the ageing water treatment plant at a cost of $800 000.
The Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe last year assigned engineers to assess the capacity of council to take over the administration of the water treatment plant ahead of negotiations for the takeover-handover.