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Yeukai Karengezeka Municipal Correspondent
Chitungwiza residents, who own boreholes and wells, have resorted to selling water for at least $1 for two buckets as the water situation continues to deteriorate in the dormitory town.

In some areas such as Unit F, G, N, O,P, Zengeza and St Mary’s people are sleeping In queues at the few community boreholes available.

Currently, council is receiving an average of 30 to 35 mega litres of water per week.

The local authority recently said it had plans to drill 25 boreholes around the town and the tender will be flighted any day from now.

In an interview, one of the residents who identified herself as Mai Memory and sells water from her borehole said the she was making people pay in order to maintain the borehole.

“We hardly get tap water and as such the demand for water has increased,” she said. “I never used to charge, but I am now doing so to have some funds to maintain the borehole and hire people to fix it.”

Mrs Lorainne Mukanaya from Zengeza 4 said it was not fair to pay for water in the neighbourhood because council was failing to provide the tap water.

“At first I used to ask around for water and we would get it for free, but the challenge now is that most wells have also dried up,” she said.

“Those with wells now need money.

“It is costly to buy water every day because I need to use an average of 100 litres per day. The painful thing is that we still have to pay monthly water charges to council when we are not getting the precious commodity.”

Chitungwiza and Manyame Rural Residents Association (CAMERA) director Mr Marvellous Khumalo urged Chitungwiza Municipality to buy bowsers as an urgent measure.

“It is sad that some people are taking advantage of the situation to make money,” he said. “Chitungwiza Municipality should offer stop-gap measures to temporarily cushion the residents by providing mobile water bowsers in the affected areas and then drill the promised boreholes before the onset of the rainy season.”