Ubumbano VoiceRead More
By Jussa Kudherezera
More than 10 000 people in Zimunya community are living with dry taps as ZESA Holdings switched off power over a debt of more than 5million ZWL. Switching of electricity has exposed residents to risk of disease, such as cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid and dysentery as they resorted to unsafe water sources. Residents who are drawing their water from shallow wells, streams, and borehole water for those who have them. Some unlucky residents have fallen sick after drinking water from these unsafe sources, but they don’t have choice. The local authority has however failed to give residents a clear answer on how the debt accrued to the extent of risking the lives of thousands of people.
The shutting down of electricity has once again exposed the vulnerability of the Mutare rural district council which has some serious credibility issues related to transparency and accountability. Crippling debt, lack of transparency and endemic corruption are sadly all too familiar stories in Zimbabwe. While it was Mutare rural council obligation to pay its bills, ZESA being a public entity should avoid endangering people’s lives through its moves. The national power utility and council are of strategic importance to the nation serving the taxpayers.
Under Section 77 of Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution, every person has the right to safe, clean and potable water. The government is obligated to take reasonable legislative and other measures, within the limits of available recourses, to achieve the progressive realization of the right to water.
As a way forward, the government at the national and local levels should urgently act to ensure alternative sources of safe drinking water, such as safe boreholes and protected wells, for the entire population.
Citizens are increasingly demanding more transparency from the local authority over its debt and public discloser of how much exactly rural council owes internal and external creditors.
