The Mayor of Harare, Bernard Manyenyeni, has warned that Harare water is not safe to drink. According to the mayor, the water is currently not being treated adequately and residents of the capital city should drink it at their own risk.
The mayor was addressing a townhouse meeting in the city after pressure from a #FixOurWater Twitter campaign.
The campaign was started by activist and Member of Parliament candidate for 2018 elections, Fadzayi Mahere. As part of the hashtag campaign, Twitter users in Harare posted pictures of dirty water coming out of their taps.
Said Manyenyeni at the meeting:
Our claims that the water is chemically safe to drink will not hold if the residents cannot stand the sight of frothing or foaming, coloured water.
This has been caused by the shortage of our main chemicals aluminium sulphate, sulphuric acid, HTH chlorine and activated carbon. Almost all our chemicals are imported and we have been caught in the crisis of forex,
We apologise and request our consumers to exercise caution until such a time total quality is assured. We do this out of caution and shared responsibility with our consumers,
Picture: Fadzayi Mahere
What happened to the very near supply of bauxite that came from Mozambique north of Penhalonga, a stone’s throw away from the Zimbabwe border. This was operated by John Meikle and it used to be trucked from the mine site to NRZ and from there to Zimphos. The mine used to be a source of alumina and Zimphos was the source of the sulphate and somewhere the alumina and sulphate were combined to make the aluminium sulphate. I visited the mine sometime in 2008 and it was operating, but there is no road that takes off from the mine site into Mozambique, signifying the product from the mine was only destined for Zimbabwe. What happened to this endless bauxite resource just by the border and again have we bungled out this deal because of our greediness. Mozambique itself did not need it and it was entirely for Zimbabwe’s advantage and I am surprised when I read that one of these chemical component needed for water purification is not available. Aluminium sulphate makes the suspensions, especially mud settle into the bottom of water reservoirs. Please engage us on these things if you do not know, we could open up and negotiate a mining deal with Mr John Meikle and help the rest of Zimbabwe. The Australians who wanted to invest on this mine abandoned the mine Project because they later discovered that the only consumer of this commodity was Zimbabwe, who may not be a reliable customer. What is really wrong with us?