The ManicaPost
Tendai Gukutikwa
Post Reporter
A ray of hope is filtering in for Gimboki Phase One residents as Mutare City Council has roped in a Dutch development partner to implement a key water project that will ease the water woes in the residential area.
Decades after its establishment, access to clean water remains a pipedream for many residents of Gimboki, a settlement in Mutare’s Dangamvura.
However, all this is set to become a thing of the past after Vitens Evides International (VEI) partnered Government and Mutare City Council to improve water delivery services in the city.
VEI will avail 247 000 Euros for the Gimboki water project.
Speaking last week on Wednesday as council introduced VEI’s officials to the people of Gimboki, Acting Town Clerk, Mr Blessing Chafesuka said Mutare City Council will provide the technical expertise for the project.
“With this funding, we will finish off the reticulation and connection of Gimboki Phase One that had already been started. This will see individual connections being effected at households.
“We will also use the rest of the money to lay the ring main and pipes for the rest of Gimboki. Funds permitting, we will connect everyone in Gimboki to safe water,” he said.
While they currently do not have a timeline for the water project, Mr Chafesuka said as soon as the site offices are set up in Gimboki, the task will kick off.
The area for the offices has already been cleared as council readies to hit the ground running.
Mr Chafesuka said Mutare City Council applied for funding after witnessing VEI’s work in Harare and Bulawayo.
He added that as council, they are prioritising Gimboki since the residents there have gone for years without access to safe water.
VEI programme manager, Engineer Robson Manasa said through its Water for Life project, his organisation will connect at least 1200 households to safe water, while the rest of the funding will be used to lay pipes for the connection for the rest of the Gimboki community.
“Our vision is to provide access to safe water to 12 million people across the world by 2030. In Zimbabwe, Mutare is the third city that we are working with, together we can stretch the dollar and help as many people as possible,” he said.
In Bulawayo, VEI has connected 7 800 households to safe water; while 2 000 benefited in Harare.
Engineer Manasa said VEI, which is working in 23 countries across the world, is committed to improving sustainable water services delivery.
“We are dedicated to a society in which there is universal sustainable water services management while leaving no one behind,” he said.
In a speech read on her behalf by a Director in her office, Mr Lucky Bhasopo, the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Honourable Nokuthula Matsikenyeri urged stakeholders to maintain transparency within the project.
“As Government, it is our hope that every household in Gimboki will be connected to safe water. If our residents work hand and glove with our partners and council, the project will come to fruition and everyone will be guaranteed of safe and accessible water,” she said.
Minister Matsikenyere said a National Housing and Social Amenities site office for the project will be set up at Gimboki South Clinic for the sake of transparency and convenience.
In an interview, a Gimboki resident, Mr Anyway Zenda said as community members, they have offered to help with manual labour, including digging up trenches, to speed up the project.
“We heard that residents in Hopley, Harare and Cowdry Park in Bulawayo all helped with unpaid manual labour under the same project so that they could be connected to water.
“We will do that too because we want water in our homes. It has been long since we settled here and there was no water connection. We are glad that finally there is movement so we will form our committees and help with labour,” said Mr Zenda.
Another resident, Mrs Mavis Munaka said they are grappling with water challenges as they fetch safe water almost 10 kilometres away.
“We have boreholes in the area, but we do not know how safe that water is as we also use septic tank toilets.
“We used stones and not cement to build the septic tank toilets so nothing stops the human waste from flowing into the boreholes.
“We are also using water from nearby streams as well from the heavily polluted Sakubva River. This project will bring significant relief for us,” she said.
