The government has pledged to assist the City of Bulawayo address the city’s perennial acute water shortages.
Bulawayo’s water supply has been dwindling for years, exacerbated by factors such as climate change, population growth, and poor resource management.
Addressing journalists in Bulawayo this week, Local Government and Public Works Minister Winston Chitando, said (via Southern Eye):
There was a disbursement of ZWL$6.9 billion at the end of February for the City of Bulawayo as part of devolution funds.
Some of that money is required in local currency and some of it in foreign currency depending on the nature of what the local authority projects to be implemented.
For example, if they want to buy cement they will use that local currency, but if they want to purchase inputs from outside the country they will now need to go to the foreign exchange mechanism to get money through the central bank.
We are going to have a regular conduct to see how we as a ministry of governance can then play that interface role with the Finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to ensure we have critical situations like we have here whereby we try to facilitate [on] foreign currency.
Chitando said the short-term solution to the water situation in Bulawayo is to improve security at Nyamandlovu. He said:
The short-term measure to address the water situation in Bulawayo, firstly is the security arrangements at Nyamandlovu that will be implemented.
There is a need to source for the US$14m required and BCC has a number of partners to participate in funding the project-we will assist the city to get foreign currency to address the water situation in the short term period.
The Nyamandlovu Aquifer is a crucial water source located in the Forest Sandstone region near Bulawayo.
Boreholes in the area typically range from 30 to 100 meters deep, with varying water levels.
