City of Harare last month embarked on a verification exercise to weed out illegal water connections. Tynwald, Mabelreign, and Marlborough are the first areas to be blitzed.
Illegal water connections are a problem in Harare as indicated by the City’s water reports which state that 60% of the 400 million litres of water being produced by the City is unaccounted for. Half of the unaccounted for water is said to be lost due to pipe leakages while the remaining half is attributed to illicit siphoning by residents.
Michael Chideme, the City’s acting corporate communications manager, said that preliminary results in Tynwald, Mabelreign, and Marlborough indicate that 630 properties have illegal water connections.
“The exercise was prompted by the discovery that not all the properties in the three suburbs were registered on the City’s billing database. In some instances some of the residents had not completed the City’s registration formalities for water connections while others had not even attempted to register with council,” said Chideme.
Chideme also revealed that those found guilty of siphoning council water will be fined $430, billed for all consumed water as shown on their water meter as well as a paying a further penalty of 30% of the illegally consumed water.
“Illegally connecting to municipal water is theft. So we are encouraging homeowners to voluntarily give divulge their illegal connections. Residents who comply will be allowed to enter into payment arrangements to offset their municipal debts,” explained Chideme.
National coordinator for the Community Water Alliance Timothy Chitambure welcomed the verification process saying that this vindicates his organisation’s position that the solution to water problems lay in the reduction of unaccounted for water.
“Our position is coming out clear now that pre-paid water meters are not the solution. The solution lies in dealing with unaccounted for treated water. Furthermore, we’d like to ask council why have residents been able to connect themselves on stands that are known to council?” queried Chitambure.
Chitambure added that his organisation did not condone illegal connections, but encouraged council to improve its water distribution planning.
“We are also guided by a Human Rights Based Approach which stipulates that there is need to interrogate the problem and its causes, and look at the situation to verify whether illegal connections are a symptom, a cause or a problem,” added Chitambure.
Residents also welcomed the move saying that all residents should commit to their bill-paying obligations. Tatenda Mhere (45) from Highfield said that illegal water connections were rampant in most suburbs, prejudicing council of much-needed money to buy water treatment chemicals.
“It is really selfish to steal water when other residents are paying their bills. This process is long overdue and council should make sure that they impose deterrent fines to avoid repeat offenders,” said Mhere.
Image: Unregulated water flowing down a street in Harare.
I’ve been absent for a while, but now I remember why I used to love this blog. Thank you, I?¦ll try and check back more frequently. How frequently you update your website?
Hi my friend! I want to say that this article is amazing, great written and include approximately all significant infos. I would like to look extra posts like this .
Good write-up, I?¦m regular visitor of one?¦s website, maintain up the nice operate, and It’s going to be a regular visitor for a long time.
I went over this website and I believe you have a lot of superb info , saved to bookmarks (:.
Hello! I just would like to give a huge thumbs up for the great info you have here on this post. I will be coming back to your blog for more soon.
Really clear website , thanks for this post.
I believe that is among the such a lot significant information for me. And i’m glad reading your article. However want to statement on few common things, The website style is perfect, the articles is in reality great : D. Good job, cheers
Hey, you used to write wonderful, but the last few posts have been kinda boringK I miss your great writings. Past several posts are just a little bit out of track! come on!
I have recently started a blog, the information you provide on this web site has helped me greatly. Thanks for all of your time & work. “Yield not to evils, but attack all the more boldly.” by Virgil.
Pretty great post. I simply stumbled upon your weblog and wished to mention that I’ve really loved browsing your weblog posts. In any case I will be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write once more soon!
Very clean internet site, appreciate it for this post.
I just could not leave your site prior to suggesting that I actually loved the usual info a person supply to your visitors? Is gonna be back incessantly to inspect new posts
I am constantly browsing online for articles that can facilitate me. Thank you!
Hmm it looks like your blog ate my first comment (it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I wrote and say, I’m thoroughly enjoying your blog. I too am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to everything. Do you have any tips for novice blog writers? I’d definitely appreciate it.
I take pleasure in, lead to I discovered exactly what I used to be having a look for. You have ended my 4 day lengthy hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
Greetings! Very helpful advice on this article! It is the little changes that make the biggest changes. Thanks a lot for sharing!
Great wordpress blog here.. It’s hard to find quality writing like yours these days. I really appreciate people like you! take care
I think other website proprietors should take this website as an model, very clean and wonderful user friendly design and style.
An impressive share, I simply given this onto a colleague who was doing a little evaluation on this. And he in fact bought me breakfast because I discovered it for him.. smile. So let me reword that: Thnx for the treat! However yeah Thnkx for spending the time to debate this, I really feel strongly about it and love reading extra on this topic. If doable, as you turn out to be experience, would you mind updating your blog with more details? It’s extremely useful for me. Large thumb up for this weblog post!
What’s Happening i am new to this, I stumbled upon this I’ve found It positively helpful and it has helped me out loads. I hope to contribute & help other users like its helped me. Great job.
Just want to say your article is as amazing. The clarity to your post is just cool and i can suppose you’re a professional in this subject. Fine together with your permission allow me to seize your RSS feed to stay updated with imminent post. Thanks 1,000,000 and please continue the enjoyable work.
Sweet web site, super style and design, very clean and utilise friendly.
Perfectly pent content material, thanks for selective information. “No human thing is of serious importance.” by Plato.
I really like your writing style, fantastic info , regards for posting : D.
Good write-up, I am regular visitor of one¦s web site, maintain up the nice operate, and It is going to be a regular visitor for a long time.
Some truly fantastic work on behalf of the owner of this website , perfectly great written content.
Hey there just wanted to give you a brief heads up and let you know a few of the pictures aren’t loading correctly. I’m not sure why but I think its a linking issue. I’ve tried it in two different internet browsers and both show the same outcome.
Somebody essentially help to make seriously articles I would state. This is the first time I frequented your web page and thus far? I amazed with the research you made to make this particular publish amazing. Wonderful job!
you’re really a good webmaster. The site loading speed is incredible. It seems that you’re doing any unique trick. Furthermore, The contents are masterpiece. you have done a fantastic job on this topic!
Heya this is kind of of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding know-how so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
hello there and thanks for your info – I have definitely picked up something new from proper here. I did however experience a few technical points the usage of this site, as I experienced to reload the site many times prior to I could get it to load correctly. I were considering in case your hosting is OK? Not that I am complaining, however sluggish loading cases times will often impact your placement in google and can harm your quality rating if advertising and ***********|advertising|advertising|advertising and *********** with Adwords. Anyway I’m adding this RSS to my email and can glance out for much extra of your respective fascinating content. Make sure you replace this once more very soon..
I really appreciate this post. I have been looking everywhere for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You have made my day! Thx again
It?¦s really a nice and useful piece of info. I?¦m glad that you simply shared this helpful info with us. Please keep us informed like this. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing excellent informations. Your site is so cool. I’m impressed by the details that you have on this blog. It reveals how nicely you perceive this subject. Bookmarked this web page, will come back for more articles. You, my pal, ROCK! I found simply the information I already searched all over the place and simply could not come across. What a great site.
My spouse and I stumbled over here coming from a different website and thought I might check things out. I like what I see so i am just following you. Look forward to going over your web page for a second time.
I appreciate, cause I found just what I was looking for. You’ve ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great day. Bye
Wonderful blog! I found it while searching on Yahoo News. Do you have any suggestions on how to get listed in Yahoo News? I’ve been trying for a while but I never seem to get there! Many thanks
I think other web-site proprietors should take this website as an model, very clean and great user friendly style and design, let alone the content. You are an expert in this topic!
You can definitely see your enthusiasm in the paintings you write. The arena hopes for more passionate writers like you who are not afraid to mention how they believe. At all times follow your heart.
of course like your web-site but you need to check the spelling on quite a few of your posts. Many of them are rife with spelling problems and I find it very bothersome to tell the truth on the other hand I will surely come back again.
Thankyou for helping out, good info .
Those are yours alright! . We at least need to get these people stealing images to start blogging! They probably just did a image search and grabbed them. They look good though!
There are some attention-grabbing time limits on this article however I don’t know if I see all of them heart to heart. There is some validity however I will take hold opinion till I look into it further. Good article , thanks and we wish more! Added to FeedBurner as well
Hello.This post was extremely motivating, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this issue last Wednesday.
Great post. I was checking constantly this blog and I am impressed! Extremely helpful info specifically the last part 🙂 I care for such info a lot. I was looking for this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and good luck.
I cling on to listening to the reports talk about receiving free online grant applications so I have been looking around for the top site to get one. Could you tell me please, where could i find some?
Hi there, simply changed into alert to your blog via Google, and located that it’s really informative. I am going to be careful for brussels. I will be grateful should you proceed this in future. Numerous other folks might be benefited out of your writing. Cheers!
This is the right blog for anyone who wants to find out about this topic. You realize so much its almost hard to argue with you (not that I actually would want…HaHa). You definitely put a new spin on a topic thats been written about for years. Great stuff, just great!
Some really fantastic info , Gladiola I found this. “Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.” by Cesare Lombroso.
Im now not certain where you are getting your info, but good topic. I needs to spend some time finding out more or working out more. Thank you for excellent information I was in search of this information for my mission.
Hello! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyways, I’m definitely happy I found it and I’ll be book-marking and checking back frequently!
Yeah bookmaking this wasn’t a risky decision outstanding post! .
Hi my friend! I wish to say that this article is awesome, nice written and come with almost all important infos. I would like to see extra posts like this .