CommuTalk Reporter
GWERU City Council has increased its pumping capacity from about 30 megalitres to between 60 to 63 megalitres per day although some residents are still to receive water.
Although the move has improved supplies to the city, residents outside the city’s boundary in Ridgemont Heights, Northgate, Hertfordshire and some within the boundary have not benefited as they still do not receive water.
While admitting some of those areas fall outside the city boundary, Gweru director of engineering services Masauso Store said all citizens were equal and no one gets preferential treatment when providing water.
Speaking during the 2024 budget review and 2025 pre-budget meeting at Gweru Townhouse, Eng Store said Gweru has a water supply schedule that it follows religiously.
He also said Ridgemont Heights and Hertfordshire, which are under Vungu Rural Council, are supplied through Clonsilla booster pump, where hours of power supply are low thereby affecting pumping to those areas.
“We however have not one day as a city, department or water section shed a portion that is under Vungu because they are (solely) under Vungu.
“The regime of water supply is the same everywhere. The areas that are getting water on Tuesday, if they include portions of Vungu RDC, it means that same day they should expect water,” he added.
“There is no curtailed service because of political boundaries as far as water supply and sewerage services are concerned,” he further said.
Gweru finance deputy director Owen Masimba said although Hertfordshire, Ridgemont Heights and Raylands and others were outside the city boundary, development permits used to develop the areas were approved by GCC.
He then highlighted that Vungu RDC had this year made an about turn and requested that those out-of-boundary residential areas revert to Vungu and start paying tariffs to them instead.
“They are allowed at law because those suburbs are outside Gweru city boundaries, so we could not disagree,” he said.
“We agreed that they go but unfortunately, most of the urban services they want can only be accessed from Gweru and as such we are supposed to charge an economic tariff to make sure we recover the cost,” he said.
Masimba said due to the fact they were no longer sharing costs with the generality of Gweru citizens, they would pay more.
“The costs we charge for within-boundaries and out-of-boundary clients are different as we need to do a cost recovery which, is commensurate with the distance and numbers involved.
“The tariffs are different, it is cheaper within and expensive outside,” he added.
Masimba also said that the improvement in pumping capacity was because of several strategies among them rehabilitation and upgrading of the water reticulation system, availing resources for water bursts, procurement of new pumps and enforcing private developers’ contribution to offsite infrastructure among others.