President turns urban  dreams into reality The Presidential Borehole Drilling Scheme has brought relief to communities that struggled to access potable water

Fungi Kwaramba

Political Editor

UNDER successive MDC/CCC councils, most residents in the capital and its satellite towns did not have running water, however, access to potable water is crystallising into reality as President Mnangagwa keeps his promises.

In the short-term, the Second Republic has drilled boreholes in most of Harare’s perennially dry suburbs under the Presidential Borehole Drilling Scheme, a project that has seen more than six rigs being acquired from investors courted in Dubai to help ease water woes suffered at the hands of often inept opposition councils.

Just last Saturday, the President was commissioning three boreholes drilled under the scheme, to put an icing on the cake, the boreholes are connected to households in the suburb with more set to be rolled out nationwide as part of bringing interim relief to residents while the mega Kunzvi Dam, that will end Harare’s water challenges, is being constructed.

“Water is life, in its absence diseases increase. As Government, we saw that Harare has water problems. We are building Kunzvi, Nyatsime, Musami dams, they will give us enough water to cover all residential areas in the city. 

“We also realised that there is too much water in Mashonaland East, especially Marondera, so we are sinking pipelines to allow Ruwa to use the water. 

“It is impossible for us to get water at the same time. I want to tell those yet to be reached by our rigs that you will get them without fail,” the President said.

Notably, the construction of Kunzvi Dam also signals President Mnangagwa’s pledge that “the era of starting projects that never get completed is long gone” as the dam has been on the cards for decades with no action from previous administrations until the dawn of the Second Republic.

The dam, which could be complete in 30 months’ time and is billed to deliver water to every household in greater Harare, has the capacity to deliver 158,4 million cubic meters of water daily.

In addition to supplying water to Harare and its catchment areas, the dam project will provide irrigation water to surrounding communities. 

Furthermore, the city will save on treatment costs as the project is more upstream than Lake Chivero which is downstream and heavily contaminated with effluent from industries and homes.

But before the dam is completed, Harare residents could have water coming from their taps as President Mnangagwa delivers his pledge to turn around the country’s towns and cities that have for more than two decades been run down by MDC/CCC councillors.

According to Mr Tempter Tungwarara, the local representative of the Dubai based investors contracted by Government to sink boreholes, they have the capacity to cover the western suburbs of Harare, such as Glen View, Budiriro, Mufakose, Warren Park, Glen Norah and also extend to the populous satellite town of Epworth.

“As per the President’s directive and vision, we want to see if we can deliver water to the residents of Glen View, we want to make sure that residents have water coming from their taps. 

“Once we are done with the western suburbs we will then go Epworth. The water table levels will determine the number of boreholes that we shall drill. We have discovered that one borehole can feed more than 40 families and if we consider that a suburb like Glen View has 4 000 houses that means we just need to drill 100 boreholes and connect them to pipes that feed into people’s homes,” he said.

Because people are now ill at ease drinking water from Harare City Council, which often gushes, on rare occasions it is available, dirt, the boreholes will have their own pipes ensuring residents have clean potable water.

This dovetails with the President Mnangagwa’s vision as stated in the ruling party’s 2018 election manifesto on water and sanitation that said the Second Republic will, inter alia, carry out a national rehabilitation programme of all water purification plants, construct Gwayi-Shangani; Mutange; Musami and Kunzvi Dams and Wenimbi Pipeline.

Muchekeranwa Dam was commissioned last year, and works on the Wenimbi pipeline that will supply water to Harare’s eastern suburbs such as Ruwa, Mabvuku and Tafara is at an advanced stage.

In Bulawayo, the country’s second capital city will soon wave goodbye to persistent water woes as the construction of the mega Gwayi-Shangani dam nears completion, after Government in January increased the number of contractors from six to 11, who together will lay a 245km pipeline from the lake to the second capital city that has also been let down by successive opposition councils.

It is noteworthy that in line with President Mnangagwa’s goal of creating jobs for local communities and skills transfer, local companies are the major actors in the ongoing construction of dams which will see every district having one.

In line with the President’s vision of turning villages into greenbelts and also becoming food-sufficient, Government envisages drilling about 35 000 boreholes in each of the country’s 35 000 villages and 9 600 boreholes at each of the country’s 9 600 schools by 2024.

A further 3 600 boreholes, two each in each of our 18 000 wards for youth horticulture projects will also be drilled.

“We have been engaged by Government to drill solar-powered boreholes in 35 000 villages and a hectare will be set aside for drip irrigation,” said Mr Tungwarara.

The country’s economic blueprint the National Development Strategy 1 identifies infrastructure development as one of the key pillars of the national vision to become an upper-middle-class economy by 2030, and towards that end, the Second Republic this year accelerated the construction and restoration of basic infrastructure services in the form of roads dams and also housing.

The provision of safe and sufficient drinking water and sanitation for the citizenry is a constitutional right and the Second Republic has been working around the clock to make that a reality as is contained in its 2018 election manifesto – through the building of dams in every district, establishing boreholes and generally expanding water harvesting for irrigation purposes.

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