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dam-l Zimbabwe water crisis/LS
>ZIM CAPITAL'S WATER SUPPLIES DRYING UP
>HARARE October 9 1998 Sapa-DPA
>
> Water supplies in Zimbabwe's capital are in danger of drying up
> and municipal officials have urgently appealed to residents to
> conserve water, the state-controlled daily Herald reported Friday.
>
> Two over-crowded townships in the east of Harare spent four days
> without water earlier this week. And on Thursday, taps in
> thousands of homes around the city dried up.
>
> The newspaper reported the rest of the city of nearly two million
> people could expect to run out of water soon, bringing with it the
> danger of outbreaks of disease.
>
> City council officials said there was enough water in the city's
> dams to last for two years. The pumping system, however, could not
> meet the demand. Adding to the shortage was unusually high
> consumption due to the heat of the recent dry season.
>
> Daily demand rose to nearly 500 megalitres, but a council
> statement said it could only deliver 300 megalitres a day.
>
> The Herald reported that engineers were scheduled to complete an
> upgrade of pumping machinery to double the output of water, but
> the work sits unfinished.
>
> Council officials offered no explanation for the tardiness.
>
> Mayor Soloman Tawengwa warned that unless residents voluntarily
> cut consumption, the council would be "forced to introduce certain
> measures to control consumption to acceptable levels that will
> enable all areas of the city to receive water".
>
> In the two large townships of Mabvuku and Tafara this week, angry
> residents smashed open municipal water pipes and collected buckets
> of water.
>
> It took council engineers a day to repair the pipes before they
> were able to resume partial water supplies to the area.
>
> There is growing frustration over the failure of the council,
> controlled by President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU officials, to
> deliver services as infrastructure collapses under the weight of
> mismanagement and corruption.
>
> The water crisis comes on top of erratic refuse collection,
> potholed roads and unlit streets where burnt-out lights have not
> been replaced.
>
> The council claims it is broke, but residents demand to know how
> it can afford building a house worth two million U.S. dollars for
> Tawengwa, fleets of luxury cars for senior officials and lavish
> travel for officials and councillors.
>
> Tawengwa, a wealthy businessman, returned this week from a
> conference in Morocco for socialist mayors.
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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