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| From right: Chamber secretary Vitalis Shonhai, Mukaratirwa and Maboke at the press conference |
…water access points more allow greater social distancing
TellZim
Reporter
City
of Masvingo has promised to do more work towards ensuring that boreholes and
other emergency water distribution points are friendlier to women and children,
TellZim can report.
The
city council held a press conference today, December 29, to clarify its
position regarding the desperate water supply situation which has seen some
suburbs like Mucheke F going for over a week without tap water.
This has worsened the plight especilly of women who have to enure basic domestic hygiene paractices in face of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Responding
to questions by TellZim on what the city was doing to ensure that women and
children are protected from sexual pervesion and other forms of violence at the often
overcrowded and tension-filled boreholes, Acting Town Clerk Edward Mukaratirwa
said the municipality fully-acknowledged the situation.
“These
issues have been raised at a number of fora and by some gender-based activists
who have written some papers to us. In response, the local authority, with its
development partners, has started a program of remodeling these water supply
points. We have started with one point in Runyararo West which is in Ward 3 and
another point in Ward 4 just close to Mucheke Old People’s Home.
“We
have put solar-powered pumps and storage tanks so that the facilities become
more user-friendly to women and children. We anticipate that the results on the
yields of the boreholes will be good. And with resources permitting, we should
be able to roll out more of such boreholes,” said Mukaratirwa.
He
said the solar-powered boreholes were friendlier to women and children in that little
physical effort is required to get water from them.
Mukaratirwa
also said that the situation at solar-powered boreholes was less chaotic than at lift pumps where women and children are more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence.
In some surburbs, the city is also using bowsers to supplement erratic piped water supplies.
In
his address, Mayor Collen Maboke said the latest round of severe water
shortages were largely due to a
transformer breakdown at Bushmead Waterworks which led to reduced pumping
capacity to 50 percent of normal.
“The Zimbabwe
Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), now has two
transformers from that station in need of repairs following the breakdown of
the other transformer in 2018.
“While shedding
has been instituted to distribute water fairly to the residents, the programme
is proving difficult to adhere to as a result of a preponderance of electricity
supply faults affecting the Waterworks and further disrupting pumping. A case
in point is a fault on 21st December 2020, where power went off at
15:38hrs and was restored the following day at 19:45hrs. In addition, there are
other faults for lesser hours but they disrupt a very constrained water supply
system,” said Maboke.
He said city’s
supply capacity remained at 30 megalitres against a daily demand of an
estimated 50 megalitres.
Ordinary boreholes in Masvingo are often overcrowded and the situation there is often chaotic and rowdy, making them coronavirus risky spaces as socila distancing is difficult to observe.
