AFRICANEWS

ZIMBABWE

Welcome to "Stench-town"

The sewage problems at Chitungwiza, Zimbabwe's third most populous town epitomise the infrastructural collapse that is the order of the day in many of the African continent's cities.

As a bunch of youngsters play a game of football in the street, a nearby sewage is spews its raw contents onto the pathway, attracting a lot of flies in the process. Such is the grim story of the no end in sight sewage problems of the troubled Chitungwiza Municipality, probably one of the poorest municipals here which still uses classrooms as its civic centre.

Sewage problems have become an everyday phenomenon here, exposing many of the town's poor dwellers to health hazards. For more than five years now, the town council has struggled to find a lasting solution to its sewage overload which frequently bursts due to the burden of overpopulation, old age and substandard equipment. Unless a quick and lasting solution is found, a health crisis is looming in this country's third most populous town, which because of this problem has earned itself a nickname, "stench town".

Municipal officials blame an aging pipe system, overpopulation and lack of manpower for the frequent sewage bursts. But what most of its residents are worried about is the threat of an epidemic.

The Mayor of the town, Andrew Jiri, has said that his council's water and sewage department is facing serious labour shortage which has made it impossible to respond quickly to emergency calls. Councillor Jiri said that to rectify this anomaly, his council will at the beginning of this year invite tenders for the repair and extension of the existing sewer facility. He also told this reporter that his council had hired 24 casual workers one for each civic ward to respond to the problem that is worsened by the rainy season.

One resident, Mrs Marian Gozo of Unit C in Seke says: "The town council has failed to remedy the sewage problem for a long time now, such that we do not mind the stench anymore, it has become part of us. A sewage had just blocked near her yard fence. The state of the sewer system also cast doubt over whether drinking water is treated properly. All this negates the town's health for all programme by the year 2000. Chitungwiza has been found guilty on a number of occassions of discharging effluent from its sewage works onto the Manyame river that supplies one of Harare's major dams. Residents are also incensed by high water charges, sometimes as high as a Z$ 1000 in a high density setting, which they say do not correspond with the services they get, usually, regular cuts and human excreta in their water.

Although there has not been significant reports on an effluent related diseases such as typhoid or dysentry, a few cases in the town are believed to be caused by the sewage flows. The threat of potential epidemic in this town is even compounded by a n unhygienic sale of fruits and vegetables following the relaxation of local government bylaws, which now permit street vending. The situation used to be better before the town's population rose to slightly over half a million.

Despite all these allegations, Mayor Jiri does not believe that the situation is serious enough to warrant a break-out of an epidemic. He denies his residents were sitting on a health time bomb. The cost of a major overhaul necessary to bring the obsolete system up to date could cost the debt ridden municipality about Z$ 15 million(US$ 150 million). Comrade Jiri says the government has already approved the sum for this exercise.

The sewage that also gushes onto open marshlands has created a fertile agriculture soil for residents who now plant various foodstuffs on them. The crops look interesting during this summer, creating a magnificent green belt, because they are constantly well watered by the sewages. The marshlands have become a favourite grazing ground for cattle from the neighbouring Seke rural area in the winter season.

City residents have taken to cultivating these wetlands as urban agriculture increases in Zimbabwe because the formal sector has failed to cope with a huge population growth. In Chitungwiza, like other towns and cities, the current rate of urbanisation coupled with poor housing, poverty, inflation and unemloyment have exacerbated the position of the urban poor, so people have resorted to agriculture for survival. In Chitungwiza the crops are grown in these wetlands, marshlands open spaces where sewages continually feed the crops with manure and contaminated water. This goes on despite repeated warnings by city authorities against doing so. Maize, the country's staple crop, is the most popularly grown by urban families, followed by sweet potatoes locally known as mbambaira a crop that has become a substitute for bread at breakfast, because of the abnormally high cost of the latter.

| CONTENTS | AFRICANEWS HOMEPAGE |

AFRICANEWS - Koinonia Media Centre, P.O. Box 8034, Nairobi, Kenya
tel/fax: 254.2.560385 - e-mail: afrinews@freeworld.it
AFRICANEWS on line is by Enrico Marcandalli