Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. There are concerns that historical documents dating back to the colonial era belonging to the City of Harare may be lost after water from a river flowing under Julius Nyerere Way seeped into the basement of the capital’s Town House.
According to NewsDay, the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC), has since switched off electricity at the building for safety reasons.
Harare Mayor Jacob Mafume confirmed that some documents in the building are now drenched in water. He told NewsDay:
There has been a problem, remember there have been a lot of rains and there are cracks in the basement where water has seeped into the building.
We had a meeting with the National Archives and the Art Gallery. Some historical documents in that building would need a certain type of draining to be done to preserve them.
We are trying to coordinate a process where we would expertly remove the water without damaging the documentation that might be of historical importance to the city and historians.
So, there are experts who are assisting us in removing the water.
Mafume said that the whole of Harare was built on a wetland, hence there is a constant need to pump out water. He said:
Harare was built on its water sources and you find a lot of rivers originating from Harare, there is a river running under Julius Nyerere Way and we have Mukuvisi and other various rivers going to Mazowe and Mt Pleasant.
There is always a debate on the issue of building on wetlands. That is why we recycle the water from Lake Chivero because it comes and flows from Harare.
The Town House was built in 1933 and has served as the headquarters for the city council ever since.
Before independence, it housed the Salisbury City Council, and in 1980, it became the Harare City Council’s central office.
Critics view the flooding of the basement of Harare Town House as evidence of neglect by the local authority in maintaining the city’s administrative building.
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