Peter Tanyanyiwa

Harare City Council (HCC) says it expects water supply to improve in the next coming hours as operations resume at Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant.

“We have resumed operations at Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Plant and as at 06:30 hrs we had 2 pumps to Letombo from Warren Control Pumpstation.

“Pepsi, Mbare and Sunningdale should be getting water now with situation expected to “normalize” in the next 24-36 hrs as chemical supplies improve,” said HCC on Sunday.

The capital has been dry for over a week, with the HCC highlighting that they are failing to make water treatment chemicals payments in time to their suppliers because of the high cost in foreign currency.

As a result the city now owes one of their main suppliers of chemicals and have urged residents to co-operation by paying bills on time.

HCC acting Town Clerk Dr Prosper Chonzi recently bemoaned the high cost of water treatment chemicals saying council was failing to make payments to suppliers in time given an unsustainable tariff regime.

As a result, Dr Chonzi said Council was now owing one of the major suppliers Chemplex Limited over ZWL$350 million.

Dr Chonzi was speaking during a tour of various projects by Harare Development Coordinator Mr Tafadzwa Muguti and his team recently.

“The average daily water production for the month of September was 319 mega litres. Water treatment chemicals costs stood at USD $2 million.

“The monthly water coverage stood at 61,25 percent up from 58,66 percent during the previous month,” he said.

“Major challenges in water supply include the high cost of water treatment chemicals, an unsustainable tariff regime, huge debt owed to suppliers of water treatment chemicals such as Chemplex.