Zimbabwe’s Chitungwiza Town Residents Denied The Right To Water access
By Wallace Mawire
Residents of the town of Chitungwiza located approximately 30 kilometres on the eastern side of Harare are lamenting over perennial water shortages which have not been addressed over years by Chitungwiza Municipality.
The residents have implored the local authority to immediately alleviate perennial water shortages, which have been plaguing the country’s largest dormitory town.
The residents, who are represented by Chitungwiza Residents Trust (CHITREST), recently dispatched a letter of demand to Chitungwiza Municipality, protesting against the local authority’s conduct in putting the lives of several families and people in danger through violating their right to water and their right to live in a safe and healthy environment.
The protest by CHITREST came after Chitungwiza Mayor Rosaria Mangoma issued a press statement on 9 October 2024, indicating that ever since the closure of Prince Edward Water Treatment Plant, Chitungwiza Municipality has been receiving between one to three Mega litres of water during weekends only, against a daily demand of at least 75 Mega litres of water.
The dire situation has resulted in residents in all the 25 wards of Chitungwiza not receiving running and potable water with some residents resorting to fetching water from unsafe sources including shallow wells and potentially contaminated deep wells and boreholes, exposing them to water borne diseases,according to a recent update by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR).
In the letter, which was written to Chitungwiza Municipality on 10 October 2024 by the residents association’s lawyers, Tinashe Chinopfukutwa and Kelvin Kabaya of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, CHITREST complained that the local authority’s failure to provide reasonably adequate running and potable water to the residents of Chitungwiza amounts to a violation of their right to safe, clean and potable water, which is guaranteed under section 77(a) of the Constitution.
Chinopfukutwa and Kabaya blamed Chitungwiza Municipality for failing to take reasonable steps to ensure the progressive realisation of the right to safe, clean and potable water, saying the local authority had instead taken regressive steps, which militate against the enjoyment of the residents’ right to water.
The failure by Chitungwiza Municipality to provide reasonably adequate safe, potable, running water to Chitungwiza residents, the human rights lawyers said, exposes the dwellers to the risk of contracting diseases such as cholera and typhoid and amounts to a violation of their right to a safe and healthy environment, which is guaranteed under the provisions of section 73(1)(a) of the Constitution.
They added that to alleviate the water woes faced by residents, CHITREST demanded that Chitungwiza Municipality should immediately provide clean water through bowsers throughout Chitungwiza on a daily basis and publish the times and places, where the water bowsers will be distributed.
Chitungwiza Municipality, CHITREST said, should supply and equip all boreholes with chlorine tablets or install chlorinators on all boreholes and furnish the Residents Association with its long term plan towards alleviating the perennial water problems in Chitungwiza and indicate steps taken in implementing the long term plan.
CHITREST said failure to comply with its demand would leave it with no option but to proceed with instituting legal action against the local authority to compel it to ease the unending water woes.
Chitungwiza is the third populous urban centre in Zimbabwe and a town of Harare Province in Zimbabwe,located on the outskirts of Harare.
