Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) has said Bulawayo waterworks are exempted from load-shedding.
This came after the Local Government Ministry met council officials as well as officials from the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) to get an appreciation of the water challenges in Bulawayo.
During the meeting, ZETDC, a subsidiary of ZESA, reportedly undertook to ensure that the city’s water pumping and treatment works are exempted from load shedding.
Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, ZETDC acting western region general manager Engineer Lloyd Jaji, confirmed that the power utility would work on exempting the city’s pumping and treatment works from load shedding. Eng Jaji told The Sunday News:
If the situation allows, we will surely be exempting their pumping and treatment works from load shedding so as to allow smooth pumping and increase in water supplies from the city. Yes, for now they have dedicated lines to their stations, where the Esigodini line is carrying them but if we get adequate supplies from our power sources, we will be exempting their stations totally from any load shedding.
Bulawayo Mayor Clr Solomon Mguni also reiterated that ZESA assured the local government authority that the city’s waterworks would be exempted from load-shedding. He is cited as saying:
It was a closed-door meeting with lots of assurances, basically, the issue of exemption of the treatment works to power cuts by ZETDC and rehabilitation of boreholes at Rochester and Epping Forest by ZINWA and other water projects that may require Government funding came up for discussion.
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, is facing one of its worst water crises in recent years, which has seen the council adopting a 72-hour water-shedding schedule to conserve available supplies until the next rainy season. However, the local authority has had to constantly suspend the 72-hour shedding schedule replacing it with a provisional water supply restoration schedule, attributing that to erratic power supplies at water stations.
BCC claimed they were only receiving 8-10 hours of power supply a day, resulting in a drop from the early March 2023 system input volume.
While exemption of power cuts at the city’s waterworks is likely to reduce the crisis, the National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project is seen as the answer to solve perennial water challenges in Bulawayo. The project is expected to be completed this year, with the construction of Lake Gwayi-Shangani and the Shangani Bulawayo pipeline close to completion.
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