News / National
Harare shuts down its water treatment plant
07 Sep 2013 at 06:16hrs | Views
Harare residents must brace for a dry weekend as the city shuts down its water treatment plant at Morton Jaffray today to allow for maintenance works on pumps and valves.
The water shortage will affect all the city's suburbs, but is expected to ease on Monday as the maintenance progresses.
City spokesperson Mr Lesley Gwindi yesterday said the city would be repairing two pumps and two valves that were leaking at the treatment plant.
"There will be a partial shut-down of Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant on Saturday so that we can have time to do maintenance works on our pumps and also repair two valves that are leaking," he said.
"The effect of the maintenance work will be reduced water production to 50 percent and residents across the city will be affected."
Mr Gwindi said the repairing process would start today and the situation was expected to normalise on Monday.
"This repairing system is part of the programme to solve the city's water problems and we will be repairing these pumps from time to time one at a time in order to allow for continuous water supply," he said.
Harare residents have been facing perennial water shortages blamed by the council on machine break breakdown, leaking pipes and the growingpopulation.
The city experiences major pipe bursts from time to time and each time the suburbs run dry, resi­dents resort to fetching water from unprotected sources, posing a danger to their health.
In his report to the city's environmental management committee recently, Eng Zvobgo attributed the water shortages to constant infrastruc­ture break-downs.
The water problems facing the city are set to end soon as the refurbishment of the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant is expected to start next month.
This comes after the council secured a US$144 million loan from the Chinese Export Import Bank and has already acquired material to be used for the refurbishment of the 60-year-old plant that is producing only 400 mega-litres of water per day when it has the potential to produce 640 mega litres.
A delegation from Sinosure, a Chinese insurance company that insured the loan toured Morton Jaffray on Thursday to familiarise with the water treatment plant.
The upgrading of the plant would result in the plugging of leaks on pipes connected to the water treatment plant and installations of water flow metres to gauge the amount of water reaching the residents.
The water shortage will affect all the city's suburbs, but is expected to ease on Monday as the maintenance progresses.
City spokesperson Mr Lesley Gwindi yesterday said the city would be repairing two pumps and two valves that were leaking at the treatment plant.
"There will be a partial shut-down of Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant on Saturday so that we can have time to do maintenance works on our pumps and also repair two valves that are leaking," he said.
"The effect of the maintenance work will be reduced water production to 50 percent and residents across the city will be affected."
Mr Gwindi said the repairing process would start today and the situation was expected to normalise on Monday.
"This repairing system is part of the programme to solve the city's water problems and we will be repairing these pumps from time to time one at a time in order to allow for continuous water supply," he said.
Harare residents have been facing perennial water shortages blamed by the council on machine break breakdown, leaking pipes and the growingpopulation.
The city experiences major pipe bursts from time to time and each time the suburbs run dry, resi­dents resort to fetching water from unprotected sources, posing a danger to their health.
In his report to the city's environmental management committee recently, Eng Zvobgo attributed the water shortages to constant infrastruc­ture break-downs.
The water problems facing the city are set to end soon as the refurbishment of the Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant is expected to start next month.
This comes after the council secured a US$144 million loan from the Chinese Export Import Bank and has already acquired material to be used for the refurbishment of the 60-year-old plant that is producing only 400 mega-litres of water per day when it has the potential to produce 640 mega litres.
A delegation from Sinosure, a Chinese insurance company that insured the loan toured Morton Jaffray on Thursday to familiarise with the water treatment plant.
The upgrading of the plant would result in the plugging of leaks on pipes connected to the water treatment plant and installations of water flow metres to gauge the amount of water reaching the residents.
Source - herald
