Residents in the still growing Cowdray Park suburb of Bulawayo are battling with ongoing water shortages that have plagued the area for more than seven years.

Thousands of people, allocated stands in the area, have been forced to add hours of queuing for water into their every day plans. They say the water problems have been caused by bad planning, with only five communal taps servicing eight thousands stands.

Resident Johnson Mdlongwa, who is also part of the Cowdray Park Development Committee, told SW Radio Africa that the queues last for hours, and sometimes people spent the whole night waiting their turn to fill their buckets. He said the pressure is still building on the community, which continues to grow.

“We have been appealing to the city fathers to do something about it. But they’ve told us we have to pay $3,000 dollars up front or $50 a month for the next few years. And that is a challenge. We can’t pay that,” Mdlongwa said.

He also expressed frustration that City Council has not been more forthcoming with answers, despite promising a year ago to meet with the residents. Mdlongwa said this still hasn’t happened.

Dubbed the ‘Dry City’, Cowdray Park is also sometimes called the ‘Dark City’ because of ongoing power problems there. Another resident, from the newer (but still dry) phase two of the development told SW Radio Africa that living there is a serious challenge.

“People have to rely on bowsers for water, but that is still not enough to service everyone here. People are queuing from the morning till late at night, just for water,” resident Allen Dube said.

The Harare City Council on Thursday revealed that it requires a staggering $2.5 billion to roll out a programme to address the city’s water problems.

Speaking to journalists, Harare Mayor Muchadeyi Masunda said the programme would ensure that residents have uninterrupted supplies, during a week when most residents had no water.

The dormitory town of Chitungwiza, which gets its water from Harare, has been without supplies for two weeks, while suburbs like Tafara and Mabvuku last had running water seven years ago.

Current water supply is estimated at 600 mega litres of water per day against a daily demand of 1,400 mega litres, according to the Herald newspaper.

The state-run daily also quoted Masunda as saying the authority would like to construct three additional water works to produce at least 1,920 mega litres.

Masunda reportedly told journalists: “We would like to construct water works at Kunzvi Dam, as has been proposed 30 years ago, and this will cost $539 million and we expect to get 250 mega litres of water.”

The mayor also revealed plans for Musami Dam, at a cost of $886 million, as well as Mazowe Dam, a “mega long-term project which needs $1.5 billion”.

But Masunda did not reveal where the money will come from, except to say that the authority would adopt a business model of running the city to generate the funds.

A frustrated Tynwald resident, who has been buying her water for $60 per tank for the past two years, dismissed the mayor’s long-term plans as ‘pie-in-the-sky’. She said what residents wanted was an immediate, achievable solution and not proposals based on unavailable funds.

“Where is that money going to come from? Before the city fathers discuss projects to increase water output, they should first restore supplies to all suburbs,” said the resident who asked not to be named.

“I am in my 50s, diabetic, live on my own and cannot get up in the middle of the night to fetch water from communal boreholes in the area, which is what most residents do,” she added.

She also took a swipe at the residents’ associations in Harare, saying they don’t appear to have a clear strategy for confronting the Harare authority about problems bedeviling the city.

She attributed the lack of decisive action by residents against the local authority to what she termed a pervasive spirit of individualism.

“Harare residents, like all Zimbabweans, are not docile as such. But people only seek individual solutions even to communal problems, and once someone has sunk a borehole for example, they think that is it, problem solved. They won’t think about the next person who is experiencing challenges. Yet even those with private water sources still receive huge bills from the council,” she said.

Combined Harare Residents Association chairman Simbarashe Moyo said a big part of the problem lies with the incompetence and lack of accountability at the authority, that Mayor Masunda should be addressing.

“What the people of Tafara and Mabvuku want to know is when the water supply will be restored, not his rhetoric about what is planned for the distant future. Where are the short and medium-term solutions?

“Residents are paying their rates but the council is failing to provide us with an essential service. We will be meeting again with council over this issue.

“It is not about maintenance works, as the council keeps telling us but it is incompetence and a lack of prioritisation. We have reservoirs that are full, but council is failing to deliver the water to the people.”

Moyo said foreign funded non governmental organisations had sunk most of the communal boreholes in the city, as part of efforts to combat waterborne diseases, and this had masked the scale of the decay and incompetence within Harare City Council.

“That is one of the reasons why residents have not risen up against the council. They think it is council trying to help them, when it is the NGOs,” Moyo revealed.

In Chinua Achebe’s book, Things Fall Apart, during one harvest, Okonkwo asked for seedlings from Nwakibie, a great man of the village. Although he had turned down similar requests from other young men, Nwakibie granted Okonkwo his wish, through a proverb: “Eneke, the bird, says since men have learned to shoot without missing, I has learned to fly without perching.”

Residents of most of Kampala’s slums seem to have picked a leaf from Eneke, the bird, to fly without perching. When they fail to access latrines, they turn to plastic bags, (flying toilets) which are later thrown out at night. As GERALD TENYWA writes, this vice has been detrimental to both the residents and Lake Victoria

He hurriedly crawls towards his mother. The entrance to a makeshift house is where the mother is sitting on a mat, as she waves a whisk to chase away flies from his nose. Not far away is sewage flowing into Nakivubo Channel, which empties into Lake Victoria.

Amina Namale, a resident of Kanyogoga-Namuwongo, one of Kampala’s largest slums, lives in a one-room house in the crowded settlement.Namuwongo is a low-lying area, where water from different parts of Kampala collects before entering Lake Victoria.

The area sometimes floods when Nakivubo Channel gets blocked. Apart from floods, Kanyogoga is also plagued by a high water table, which has made it difficult to construct deep pit-latrines. When Namale wants to answer nature’s call, she goes to a public latrine used by more than 100 people.

For every visit to the latrine, she parts with sh200.So, what happens in cases where the residents cannot afford the user fee? According to Ronald Ddumba, a community worker, people who cannot pay sh200, resort to plastic bags, popularly known as flying toilets.

Emmanuel Masengere, the LC1 chairperson, says when darkness falls, some residents throw the plastic bags into the drains or onto the roofs of their neighbours’ homes. Others drop them in the narrow dark corridors between the crammed houses. If they are lucky, the storm carries away some of the plastic bags and their contents into the nearby Nakivubo Channel.

However, sometimes the buveera block the drains, pushing the filth back to the settlement. Masengere says Kanyogoga needs about eight public latrines, yet there are only four.

“There are no caretakers at night. So when people find it closed, they resort to kaveera.” David Mukama, the sanitation coordinator in the Ministry of Water and Environment, says the residents are exposed to environmental and health risks.

Given that one gram of faeces contains 10 million viruses, one million bacteria,1,000 cysts and 100 worm eggs, every person who discards human waste (on average each person releases 500 grams a day), exposes people in the slum to a big risk. In addition, the flying toilets contaminate drinking water from the roofs.

Most times, the runoff goes into the Nakivubo Channel, which ends up contaminating Lake Victoria. Mukama attributes the frequent cases of dysentery and cholera in Kanyogoga to poor sanitation. “After defecating in the kaveera, people throw it on roofs, from where some people harvest rain water,” says Mukama.

Because of the high water table in Kanyogoga, most latrines are shallow

CHOLERA OUTBREAKS IN KANYOGOGA

Kanyogoga is littered with drug shops, which Masengere says typifies the high cases of water-borne diseases such as dysentery and cholera. In 1995, 10 people died of the disease in the area.Another outbreak occurred in 2004. The latest, which happened last year, left one child dead, according to Masengere.

HOUSES WITHOUT TOILETS

“Most of the landlords do not own houses in the slums. They live in high-end areas and only return to collect rent,” says Mukama. May be that is the reason why they construct houses without latrines. He says people rent houses without toilets because they cannot afford better ones.

Kampala Capital City Authority spokesperson Peter Kaujju says they are working with donors (KFW, a German Bank and the Africa Development Bank) to ensure slum residents access safe water. In the arrangement, Kaujju says every 20 litres of water will go for sh25. He says the Ministry of Works and Housing has also initiated a programme to upgrade all slums in Kampala.

Ouagadougou — Earlier this year Denis Ouedraogo, a tailor living in the Tampouy neighbourhood just north of Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou, connected his mud-walled home to the water network for the first time. “Even without electricity, having enough water can make you happy,” he said.

He is among 1.9 million people to have connected to the government water grid since 2001, thanks to major changes in how the National Office for Water and Sanitation (ONEA) delivers water to urban Burkinabés.

In 2001 just 73,000 Burkinabés could access clean water, according to research by Peter Newborne at the Overseas Development Institute, which is trying to track and communicate examples of progress on development.

In 2002 just half of Burkina Faso residents had access to clean water. In 2008 (the latest statistics available) this had risen to 76 percent – 95 percent in urban areas. The plan was to reach the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to double the number of those with access to clean water, in this case to 87 percent, by 2015. Those tracking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) progress in Burkina Faso, say the goal will be surpassed.

How?

A number of factors made this possible: ONEA was nationalized and restructured in 1994 following a period in which it had become unprofitable and poorly functioning. The new national company ran along commercial lines, instilling a culture of performance and efficiency, said Newborne.

The second priority was to find a bulk water supply, in this case by building the Ziga dam 45km from the capital.

A mixture of government grant funds (from France and other European donors) and concessionary loans at low interest rates (predominantly from the World Bank), provided the required finances. This helped them bring costs down: for instance, connecting to the grid now costs a household US$61, down from on average $400 in the 1990s, according to ONEA’s chief operating officer, Moumouni Sawadogo.

Next came the work: building a network of pipes throughout Ouagadougou, including in the city’s unzoned [unplanned] suburbs, which house one third of the capital’s residents and had hitherto been overlooked in terms of household water supply.

“Even in non-zoned areas, people can pay their water bills,” said Halidou Kouanda, head of NGO Wateraid in Burkina Faso, citing a 2011 ONEA study noting that financial recovery rates in unzoned neighbourhoods were 95 percent.

Now, with a steady income and an 18 percent leakage rate, ONEA is one of the best-performing water utility companies in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Bank.

Targeting the poor

While targeting unzoned areas upped the percentage of urban dwellers who could access clean water (thus helping to meet the MDG), it did not ensure that water was affordable.

Now ONEA needs to try to target the poor, as it pledged to do in an initial equity strategy agreed with the Ministry of Water and Sanitation.

As part of its strategy, ONEA built 17,290 wells and standpipes for some areas without household-level connections. Water from a standpipe costs 60 CFA (11 US cents) for a 220 litre barrel (transported on wheels). But the very poor cannot afford such barrels, turning instead to water vendors who sell the same amount for 200-500 CFA (40-98 cents) depending on the season.

Thus paradoxically, the poorest families pay up to eight times more than others for their water.

ODI is discussing different pro-poor targeting methods that might work, including: subsidizing part of the water supply for certain households; targeting poor areas; allocation by housing type; means-testing; community-based targeting; or self-targeting.

Photo: Peter Newborne/ODI

A stand-pipe on the outskirts of Burkina Faso’s capital, Ougadougou

At the moment, all households are charged the same connection tariff. “Is this equitable? We think not,” said Newborne. “You could means-test it; you could waive the connection charge for some; or charge the first X cubic metres at a different rate,” he suggested, adding that lower-income households could pay bills weekly or on a pay-as-you-go basis, to keep track of costs. “Think of how mobile phone companies have fixed their pricing plans to be accessible,” he said.

The concern is that households who experience running water for the first time may use more than they can afford, then falling behind and drop off the grid, said WaterAid’s Kouanda. This happened to 6.8 percent of Ouagadougou’s ONEA customers in 2009.

Families must be made aware of this risk, said Kouanda. But many customers are so nervous of this happening, that they practice their own careful monitoring.

Ami Sidibé, who lives in Somgandé neighbourhood, which was connected to the water mains three months ago, said she continues to fill jerry cans – using tap water – to monitor her household’s use. “I’ll do anything to avoid returning to the situation before,” she told IRIN.

Reduced disease risk?

No studies have yet been published linking the spread of the water network with the incidence of disease, but some Somgandé residents who were recently connected to the grid said their children were falling sick less frequently. Water-borne illnesses are among the top five reasons for children’ health visits, according to the Health Ministry.

Future challenges will include how to extend such networks to rural areas, which are currently under-serviced in terms of clean water: 72 percent of rural Burkinabés access clean water, versus 95 percent of city residents.

The local authorities are responsible for rural water supply under Burkina Faso’s decentralized governance system.

According to a just-published report Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water 2013 Update by UNICEF and the World Health Organization, striking disparities remain between rural and urban water access, with rural communities making up 83 percent of the global population without access to an improved water source.

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. ]

Barely few days after the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) announced that it has begun pumping water to central Monrovia, the corporation has increased tariff to meet the new demands.

But the Corporation is beset with new challenges of water theft and water undermining by unscrupulous individuals while it strives to pump water to central Monrovia and its surrounding communities.

Making the disclosure at a news conference Thursday, the Managing Director of the LWC, Mr. Charles Allen said the tariff will affect family customers, business customers and truckers

The previous fees of U$2.5cent for a thousand gallons of water for family customers has been increased to US5.00

Also, the previous price of U$8.00 for a thousand gallons of water for business customers has also been increases to U$15.00.

For water trucking customers, the U$10.00 for thousand gallons of water has been increased to U$15.00.

The MD lamented that the LWSC was at the disadvantage because business people purchase water at a lower cost and sell it at a higher cost.

He said the increases were necessary to assist the corporation to cover its operational and maintenance costs.

Meanwhile, the Board of Director has suspended its Deputy Managing Director for Finance Mr. James Wleh for questionable credentials he submitted to the Corporation.

The head of Board of Directors of LWSC Mr. Kemmie Weeks acknowledged that Mr. Wleh’s credential was part of the audit report the Global Business Solution Incorporated (GBSI) commented on.

But Mr. Weeks said Mr Wleh has been asked to resubmit his credential but will remain suspended for one month until he can submit the required report.

On the issue of the draft audit report’s finding of lack of transparency and conflict of interest on the part of the LWSC, Mr. Weeks said the auditing company did not contact them but said they have commented the specific issues the audit report mentioned. He refused to give further details.

The Management of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) says the corporation is losing more than 70% of what should be its gross income to thieves and damaged pipes in the country.

LWSC Managing Director, Charles Allen said the issue of loss was posing serious challenge to the entity’s revenue generation and financial viability.

Speaking at a press conference in Monrovia, Mr. Allen said the corporation currently pumps about 7.5 million gallon of water daily, out of which 70% is lost to either thievery or sometimes caused by damaged pipes and other conditions.

He identified the Old road community as a case in point where serious thievery was noticed and the proper corrective measure is being put in place to remedy the situation.

Mr. Allen said it was also observed that corporation was pumping about 400,000 gallons of water daily to only 300 legal and registered customers.

He said it was necessary for the entity to readjust its current tariff in order to meet various costs, including diesel fuel, pipes and fitting, labor, chemicals among others.

Speaking earlier, LWSC Board Chairman, Kimmie Weeks said the entity sees the recent audit report released by GBSI, an international auditing firm based in Washington D.C., as a road map to address some of the challenges facing the corporation.

Dr. Weeks clarified that the audit on the LWSC by the GBSI was commissioned by the Board of Directors and not by any other person or organization as being perceived in some quarters.

The audit, revealed among other things, serious lapses in the management of the resources of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation (LWSC) due to ‘incompetence of the board of director of the corporation’.

The report, released on April 18, 2013 by the Washington D.C firm, further revealed that LWSC is financially insolvent; thereby running at a loss annually and charging rates that do not adequately recover its costs.

The report also indicated that review of the LWSC’s Commercial Operations showed glaring weaknesses in all areas, which if not addressed, would fundamentally impair the organization’s ability to meet its mission of providing safe drinking to the people of Liberia.

However, the LWSC Board Chairman said the outcome of the audit was intended to identify the organization’s weaknesses and bring forth recommendations for improvement.

“We’re not looking for a rosary audit, but we’re looking for a road map that will fix the corporation… ” he said.

Dr. Weeks stated that during the period of the audit, no member of GBSI contacted any member of the LWSC Board for clarification as stated in the report.

The report revealed that despite holding regular meetings, the audit did not find meeting minutes as the LWSC could not provide auditors the minutes during the period of audit despite multiple requests.

The auditing firm states that the refusal of the LWSC management and the BOD to provide these documents leaves room for question; this, the LWSC Board Chairman termed as untrue. Writes,

Harare needs more than US$2,5 billion to start its proposed water augmentation programme that will ensure that residents have uninterrupted supplies as the city spent the past week without supplies to most suburbs.

The city is producing an average of 600 mega litres of water per day against a daily demand of 1 400 mega litres.

Harare Mayor Mr Muchadeyi Masunda said council would like to construct three additional water works to produce at least 1 920 mega litres a day.

Mr Masunda was speaking while addressing journalists in Harare on Wednesday evening.

“We would like to construct water works at Kunzvi Dam as has been proposed 30 years ago and this will cost US$539 million and we expect to get 250 mega litres of water,” he said.

“Musami Dam is the other site where we expect 470 mega litres of water and it will cost US$886 million. Mazowe Dam is the other mega long term project which needs US$1,5 billion and will provide us with 1 200 mega litres.”

Mr Masunda said the council was set to fund all of the projects as it has adopted a model of running the city like a business.

“Our aim is to source funds for our projects without Government’s hand. The city has so many business enterprises and these must be utilised for the development of the city,” he said.

City officials attributed the water shortages experienced in the city yesterday to maintenance works being carried out. Parts of Glen View, Budiriro, Highfield and Glen-Norah, which usually receive water in the early hours of the morning and late at night, have gone for more than a week without supplies.

“There are major maintenance works that are happening at Morton Jaffray, while council is repairing pumps, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority is repairing transformers at the same place,” town clerk Tendai Mahachi said in an interview yesterday.

He said the maintenance works meant the water department was pumping less water. The major maintenance works, Dr Mahachi said, were likely to continue for the next seven months as the city battles with rectifying the extreme water shortages being experienced by residents. Suburbs such as Mabvuku, Tafara, Rhodesville, Highlands, Chisipite, Greencroft, Mandara, Borrowdale, Greendale and some parts of Msasa have gone for years without tap water.

Ruwa, which also gets supplies from Harare, has had water problems for years.

Students at the University of Zimbabwe said yesterday that they were now concentrating on searching for water elsewhere as the college has gone without water since last week.

The Finance Director of Kerewan Area Council has lauded the efforts of Kerewan link of the Red Cross Society for complementing the efforts of the Council in carrying out cleansing exercise in Kerr Pateh Koreh, Kerewan Health Centre and Kerewan Area Council in the North Bank Region.

Seedy Touray was speaking recently in Kerr Pateh Koreh at the end of the cleansing campaign of public places.

He noted that the council highly appreciated the initiative of Kerewan Red Cross Link in promoting sound environmental sanitation and decent environment of public places.

Yunusa Suwareh, President of Kerewan Red Cross Link, thanked Kerewan Area Council for their support to the link, noting that sound environmental sanitation in public places is crucial to the well-beng of the people. He then called on institutions and philanthrophists to support the link, so as to enhance humanitarian services.

Ousman Suwareh, the team leader echoed, similar sentiments and then called on the youth and parents to value the importance of humanitarian works.

The beneficiary institutions and communities were very much appreciative of the efforts and then assured them of their support to Red Cross Link.

THE residents of Windhoek will be experiencing the first phase of water supply interruptions, caused by the upgrading of the water pipelines, which will begin today.

Today the transfer of water from the Von Bach Treatment Plant to Windhoek will stop at 22h00. According to a press statement from the City of Windhoek in partnership with NamWater, the water supply to Windhoek will be interrupted, but the City’s reservoirs will be filled and there will be enough water available to supply the residents for the duration of the interruption on condition that the water is used sparingly.

Residents are therefore cautioned to avoid activities such as watering of gardens, washing of cars and hosing of paved areas during the specific weekend.

NamWater Public Relations Officer, Numbala Tommi-Riva further commented saying that the reasons for the water interruption is because NamWater wants to increase the water capacity of the pipeline between Okahandja and Windhoek.

The interruptions will be in four phases, one will be in this month, the next one will be 14-16 June, 19-21 July and the last one will be on 16-18 August 2013.

However the bacteriological quality of the water will not be compromised during this period and the water will be safe for human consumption according to NamWater and the City of Windhoek.

The normal transfer of water to the City of Windhoek is anticipated to resume on Sunday at 18h00.