 |
| Getting enough water is becoming more difficult for residents of Bilashaba |
Exsto
Makunzva
ZVISHAVANE
– Teachers
at Bilashaba Primary School as well as residents of 12 surrounding villages
have said they are in serious trouble of water shortages since a nearby dam is
fast drying up.
The dam is the only
source of water for many villagers who make up over 600 households as well as
school teachers who use it for gardening and for domestic purposes.
More than 600 families
use the dam in a normal year but due to erratic rains received in the 2019-2020
cropping season, very little water made it into the dam.
To
compound the situation, teachers at the school travel for 3km to and from a
borehole which provides some potable water because closer boreholes have completely
dried up.
This
has also forced some villagers to dig shallow wells along the river bank.
Platinum
mining company Mimosa recently sent a rig to drill a new borehole but it hit a
dry hole and work is still being done to find a better drilling site.
This
intervention followed Mimosa general manager Alex Mushonhiwa’s promise to drill
a borehole after learning of the community’s plight during a prize giving
ceremony at the school in 2019.
“People
and their livestock are suffering because the water is disappearing very fast
and we know it will be a long time before we receive new rains. Gardening is
now difficult to do because we cannot even get enough water for use at home,”
said Zvidzai Mpofu from Jonyo Village under Chief Masunda
Bilashaba
Primary School Development Association (SDC) chairperson Felistas Tahla said
they no longer know what to do to prevent a full-blown crisis except to put
their hopes in Mimosa’s own efforts.
“Our
hopes are now pinned on the work that Mimosa is doing. After hitting a dry
hole, they went away but later came back to carry out another survey. We hope
they will do more drilling work sooner than later. We have also communicated
our problems to the local authority but they haven’t done anything about it
yet,” Tahla.
