Online Reporter
Latwell Nyangu
THE water challenges bedevilling major cities in Zimbabwe will be a thing of the past soon following the greenlight to privatise the provision of water, a Cabinet Minister has said.
Speaking during a ministers and media session, the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Daniel Garwe, said, they have been given the greenlight to privatise the provision of water.
“We were given greenlight to privatise, we are now in the process of inviting the private sector players, both local and international, to bring proposals of interest.
“We want somebody with the capacity to engineer, procure, construct, manage and finance.
“So far, we have received five, three from international players and two from local players.
“It’s work in progress and we are hoping by the end of next week, we will have interviewed them and identified the suitable candidates.”
He added:
“We want by the end of this month, to make sure that we have dealt with issues of water in Harare
“We are not looking at a segmented approach, like what used to happen before but we are looking at an investor who comes and cover the whole value chain, from purification, distribution, billing and watering.
“We want to move away from the old meter system to a digital, smart water metering system.
“By the end of this month, or early February, you will see movements and we are not looking at Harare alone but all our cities.
“The priority areas are Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls, since it is our capital city for tourism.”
The Minister said there are enough sources of water to cover the population growth.
“If we look at Harare, we have two dams that are going to be feeding Harare.
“Muchekeranwa will feed water into Ngwenimbe in Marondera, which will take water into Manyame River or Rufaro Dam, which comes all the way to Harare.
“It will then cover Melfort, as a smart city, Goromonzi, Ruwa, Mabvuku area and Zimre Park.
“We also have Kunzvi Dam, which is under construction, and will assist in the supply of water into Harare.
“It’s a matter of time before Harare’s water woes will be resolved but considering the water infrastructure in the country, we will not meet the demand.
“As we appoint investors, they will also upgrade the system to make sure we are not going to have water problems.
“We have problems with leakages, this system which is used in Africa, like Nigeria, and Algeria detects the leakages in the process.
“We want to use the model in all the cities.”
