News / National
Lawyers threaten to sue government over water
09 May 2014 at 08:25hrs | Views
Lawyers have challenged government to provide safe drinking water to the country's citizens or face legal action as access to potable water is basis to human right.
The warning followed President Robert Mugabe's bitter complaint over the safety of drinking water in the country's cities.
Mugabe recently admitted government's failure to provide potable water, raising fears of another cholera outbreak that left 4 000 people dead in 2 008.
An emergency Cabinet committee has already been set to address the water crisis.
Meanwhile, funeral parlours, service stations, fuel holding depots and food processing plants have been dumping waste in the drinking water system countrywide.
This has incensed a Cabinet Committee, which has ordered thousands of such businesses to immediately install waste interceptors and pre-treatment plants to curb pollution or face closure.
The committee was established to probe causes of water pollution and raw sewage disposal; and make recommendations in line with provisions of Zim-Asset. According to sources who attended a Cabinet committee meeting on water pollution in Harare yesterday, the businesses have up to June 30, 2014 to have functioning plants.
The committee wants a Statutory Instrument to immediately enforcing the "Polluter must Pay" principle. However, Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo, who chairs the committee, could not divulge what the Statutory Instrument would say.
The warning followed President Robert Mugabe's bitter complaint over the safety of drinking water in the country's cities.
Mugabe recently admitted government's failure to provide potable water, raising fears of another cholera outbreak that left 4 000 people dead in 2 008.
An emergency Cabinet committee has already been set to address the water crisis.
This has incensed a Cabinet Committee, which has ordered thousands of such businesses to immediately install waste interceptors and pre-treatment plants to curb pollution or face closure.
The committee was established to probe causes of water pollution and raw sewage disposal; and make recommendations in line with provisions of Zim-Asset. According to sources who attended a Cabinet committee meeting on water pollution in Harare yesterday, the businesses have up to June 30, 2014 to have functioning plants.
The committee wants a Statutory Instrument to immediately enforcing the "Polluter must Pay" principle. However, Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo, who chairs the committee, could not divulge what the Statutory Instrument would say.
Source - newsday
