Zimbabwe -- Chombo lied, says mayor (Harare water crisis)

Daily News (Zim) ^ | December 10, 2002 | Lloyd Mudiwa, Municipal Reporter

[Clive]

DR Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, deceived the nation when he said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) had given Harare City Council US$500,000 (about Z$28 million at the official exchange rate) for vital water treatment chemicals, said the Executive Mayor of Harare yesterday.

Chombo, in an interview with the government newspaper, The Herald, accused the mayor, Elias Mudzuri, of “politicking and playing politics” over the water crisis in the capital.

Mudzuri challenged Chombo to a live public debate on TV so that Zimbabweans could judge for themselves who was to blame for the water crisis.

Mudzuri said it was Chombo who was politicising the water issue. He said his council only received confirmation that the money was available late on Friday last week.

According to a fax received by the council from the RBZ on Friday at 5:32pm, the value date of the money, to be used to buy ecol 2000 to kill algae in raw water and for disinfecting, is only today, Tuesday.

The city applied for the foreign currency on 16 September 2002, and now owes the South African supplier of ecol 2000, Aqua Pro Vitae, the equivalent of about $32 million in hard currency for previous deliveries.

“So what did Chombo want me to do within a day?” said Mudzuri, saying the government itself was struggling with the food shortages when it was projected long beforehand that there would be a drought.

Mudzuri said even if Chombo were to sack him, he would leave a happy man knowing he did the right thing in trying to provide services to the residents.

The council has now issued a statement inviting all residents, the Combined Harare Residents’ Association, other residents’ associations and their affiliates, the business sector, civic organisations and any other interested people to a public meeting to hear “the truth behind the current water problem”.

The meeting will be held at Town House today at 5pm.

Mudzuri said yesterday: “If they are serious that I am politicising the water issue they should drag me before national television and ask the residents to question me.

“I want it to be broadcast live. If they want, I can even address the nation now, instead of just politicising the situation – and I want Chombo there.

“He is the minister who should oversee our success, but he appears to be doing us down.”

But the mayor thanked the President’s Office, through Dr Charles Utete, the Secretary to the President and the Cabinet, for responding quickly to the city’s plea for assistance in securing the foreign currency. The municipality, he said, required more foreign currency.

Mudzuri said Chombo was to blame for the water problem.

[Clive]

See also:
Zimbabwe -- Crisis averted, water supply to resume in Harare

[Clive]

-

[happygrl]

This is not the end of these types of crisis.

The difference between Zimbabwe and other Afican nations is its level of expectations. Surely the there will be an explosion.

[Clive]

Agreed.

Before Mugabe started his hondo yenzara my expectations were that the best hope for Africa was Zimbabwe.

Now it is just about dead last.

I do have some hopes for Sierra Leone following the insurrection and for Mozambique.

But when we talk about expectations in context of Africa every prognosos is at best guarded.

When I am in a gotterdammerung or ragnarok mood, I wish for another Chaka to take sub-saharan Africa in his teeth and shake it like a bone.

It would be bloody, but the long range butcher's bill would be less than the continuous bleeding that is going on now.

And there would be the hope of rationalization of the tribal boundaries and hope for a cohesive effort by Africa to drag itself up by its own bootstraps.