The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has suspended its water-shedding programme in areas supplied by Magwegwe and Criterion reservoirs for two weeks due to water supply challenges.
The city is currently on a 144-hour shedding schedule but for some suburbs in the city water will be “available on an as and when basis, depending on the reservoir levels to allow for the consumers to only fill up their containers.”
In a statement, Saturday, Town Clerk, Christopher Dube said the water supply interruptions will last for two weeks.
The affected suburbs supplied by the Magwegwe reservoir are Luveve, Magwegwe, Njube, Entumbane, Mpopoma, Lobengula, Lobengula West, Mabutweni, Iminyela, Phelandaba, Matshobana, Cowdray Park, Makhandeni and Gwabalanda.
While those supplied by the Criterion reservoir are Bellevue, West Sommerton, Tshabalala, Sizinda, all of Nkulumane, Nketa, Pumula and Emganwini suburbs.
“The interruption is due to prolonged time needed for the city’s reservoirs to recover since the theft of the 2km of electricity supply cables on July 31 2020 as well as recent three emergency leaks repairs to the Nyamandlovu line on August 6 and the latest power supply challenges to the Rochester Nyamandlovu boreholes which occurred at night on August 13 and which ZETDC is currently working on,” said Dube.
“These factors against the background of City Average Consumption which for the last two weeks has continued to be higher than supply have resulted in the prolonged recovery of the City`s reservoirs. This is further compounded by low dam levels.”
Dube said the local authority will review the situation “regularly until 28th August 2020, a date which we envisage the system to have recovered for supply to be regularised to allow for reversion back to the standing water-shedding program.”
