By Correspondent
Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe has promised that Harare water supply will have increased from 330 to 600 mega litres by year end.
However, the promise hangs in the balance as it is predicated on infrastructure that was built in 1980.
Speaking to state media recently Garwe said they aim to have Council draw water from Darwendale Dam.
“The Local Government and Public Works Ministry is working on water reticulation programmes.
“(It will) draw water from Darwendale Dam and pump it into Morton Jaffray Waterworks for purification and onward conveying it to the City of Harare.
“I am happy to note that there has been significant progress regarding this,” he said.
“It is expected that by year end the water supply will have increased from current 330 mega litres per day to over 600 megalitres per day.
Historical Black Spots
However, the tunnel Garwe is speaking about is old and may actually need to be overhauled.
The tunnel linking Darwendale Dam with Morton Jaffray was commissioned in the 1980s under a major water augmentation programme.
It was used to pump raw water up from the eastern end of the tunnel since Darwendale has cleaner raw water.
Again, there is currently no functional equipment for that task.
In 2019 Council interrogated the same plan to improve its water quality.
Authorities repaired one lift that enabled engineers to get to turbines that draw water from Darwendale Dam.
Until 2019, the lift had not been working for five years.
It went down a tunnel that has a pipeline which links MJ with Darwendale Dam.
However, the fixing if the lift only facilitated for engineers look at some equipment which had also been lying idle for more than three years by then.
After that nothing much happened and Council continued depending on the contaminated Lake Chivero.
Concentrated water from Chivero is now full of algae making it very expensive to purify.
In 2021 US$10 million was spent on rehabilitating MJ in a bid to implement the same Darwendale plan.
Council acquired five raw water pump sets, valves and associated switchgears.
The water pump deal itself was courted in controversy.
However, even after the acquisition of the pumps, the Darwendale plan is yet to be effective.
This history around the Darwendale plan makes Minister Garwe’s promise highly improbable.
Whatever infrastructure may have been erected sine 1980 needs to be overhauled if the plan is to work.
