Municipal writer
Harare residents have raised concern over alarming water pollution in Lake Chivero, degradation and destruction of fresh water habitants in the city.
Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) said it was concerned that the issue was not being taken seriously by stakeholders.
“Water is fundamental in sustaining life. Yet Harare the capital City remain water insecure with proposed solutions to the water crisis not addressing the critical issues impacting our fresh water habitats,”said CHRA.
“Our freshwater habitats in Harare which are wetlands, lakes, rivers and dams are under threat from pollution, degradation and destruction.
It is worrying that those who are purporting to address the water crisis in Harare continue to underplay the role of the natural infrastructure in water service provision.
“The alarming water pollution levels at Lake Chivero has seen the City of Harare increasing water tarrifs and introducing a mandatory “special water levy” on water consumers connected to municipal water supplies in order to sustain the astronomic water purification costs hovering around USD$ 3 million per month.
“Instead of dealing with pollution that is impacting our fresh water habitats in particular raw water quality the local authority intends to install 650 000 prepaid water meters,”added CHRA.
Harare city council has mooted plans of installing prepaid water meters and water levy, a move which has raised controversy among residents and ratepayers.
CHRA urged stakeholders to come up with a lasting solution to end the water pollution crisis in Harare.
“While wetland recharge our rivers , and streams with fresh water , the level of destruction of these water sources under the full glare of both government and the City of Harare is shocking and disturbing.
“We reiterate that the privatization agenda being pursued by the local authority will not address the fundamental problems of water pollution and degradation of the natural infrastructure which are immensely contributing to water insecurity in our city.”
We therefore recommend enforcing the polluter pays principle provided in the Environmental Management Act, review of the fines and penalties on water pollution in order for them to be deterrent, currently it’s cheaper to pollute than to comply, the Environmental Management Agency and the City of Harare must ring fence funds raised from fines and penalties for the purposes of rehabilitating the natural infrastructure such as de-silting, and wetlands restoration, rehabilitation of none and partly functioning sewer reticulation system, protection of wetlands as they provide ecological services for free including water purification.”