By Richard Muponde
Gwanda town is without water since Wednesday after Zinwa cut off water supplies to the municipality to force the council to pay the outstanding $9,5 million.
On Tuesday Gwanda Town Clerk, Ms Priscilla Nkala told a full council meeting that Zinwa had written to them saying the municipality was left with only three hours of water supplies.
“As I speak we received a notice from Zinwa today telling us that we have three hours water supplies left and this is what we should deal with first,” said Ms Nkala.
Since Wednesday Gwanda has been without running water after Zinwa cut off supplies.
Zinwa’s decision to cut supplies has been described as a security threat by the mayor, Councillor Knowledge Ndlovu.
“We agreed with its board in the last meeting that they should sort out their issues first before asking us to pay in advance for water. How many times have they placed those pre-paid meters and discovered they were not working?” said Clr Ndlovu.
He said Gwanda council should be allowed to run its water supplies reticulation system which involved pumping water to residents as opposed to relying on Zinwa.
“We have said we don’t want Zinwa in this town and the Government is aware of our position,” he said.
Clr Ndlovu said his council had the capacity to pump and treat water for its residents and should be allowed to do what other urban councils were doing.
The mayor said by cutting supplies, Zinwa was inciting residents to engage in violent demonstrations.
“Last time we stopped people from demonstrating against them because we feared this could be hijacked leading to property being destroyed. This is a security issue they are playing with. We want peace in this town and Zinwa should be careful in that regard,” said Clr Ndlovu.
Council and Zinwa have been involved in a tussle over the issue of supplying water to the mining town for more than 10 years now.The Chronicle
