Urban Boreholes Sink MDC-T Political Fortunes

Written by Rejoice Ngwenya

My wife is among vote-eligible millions habitually contemptuous of Zimbabwe’s poisoned electoral system. Her skepticism of political promises has of late, been reinforced by the dismal failure of Ruwa Local Board [RLB] to offer reliable water service to her urbane home. In 2008, enthusiastic Movement for Democratic Change Tsvangirayi [MDC-T] campaigners heightened expectations of Ruwa Urban Residents [RURs] with promises of unlimited safe piped water. After five years of dry taps, a mere nine months before Election 2013, she, like many RURs, has had to invest in an expensive borehole system. “All politicians are the same,” she moans. “They lie for a living!” She has vowed never to vote MDC-T.

Water problems afflict most Morgan Tsvangirayi-controlled Local Authorities [LAs]. MDC-T finds itself completely exposed to criticism. Council governance is a test of political efficacy. If you want to taste the ire of urban women, deprive them of drinkable tap water! Unlike my wife, I am lenient with political manifestos. I simply punish campaign crooks by voting against them. What a feeling of satisfaction after expressing ballot box vengeance! She would rather abstain than legitimise electoral hypocrisy.

Academic Sharon Murinda argues how Urban Councils Law ‘specifies the responsibilities of the council concerning the provision and maintenance of supply of water within or outside the council area … [but] it does not give sufficient guidance for the management of urban water supply services.’ This implies the RLB can offer a myriad of excuses for not supplying water - without ‘breaking any law’! Water engineer T.J. Broderick attempts to save MDC-T from the electoral guillotine: “The foundation investigations for Kunzvi Dam on the Nyagui River were completed in 1996 and plans were in place for that supply to augment the ever-growing Harare by 2004. Those plans were stalled, and the [Harare] population still waits and expands. Then the disastrous move to take water supply responsibility from the Municipal authority and give it to ZINWA, coupled with power woes, consequent pumping problems, an unchecked pollution of Chivero and Manyame waters, and our economic crash through into the new millennium put renewed demand on an overtaxed and basically unmanaged groundwater system “.

RURs spend many hours rattling neighbours’ gates begging for ground water. Turnover of ‘housemaids’ is consequently high in Ruwa, with most ‘sisters’ fleeing the torture of wheelbarrows and neck-breaking water gallons. My wife and I are regular attendees of council public meetings where residents are routinely threatened for defaulting on rates. In our locality alone, RLB is owed over a million US dollars as citizens protest the non availability of water. My activist efforts of distributing ‘water update’ newsletters were rewarded with police threats for ‘circulating unlawful written materials’. So much for independence!

Borehole water, for my wife, is now the ultimate solution. “Groundwater is the best resource to tap to provide clean water to the majority of areas in Africa … [it] has the benefit of being naturally protected from bacterial contamination and is a reliable source during droughts. (Awuah, Nyarko, Owusu & Osei-Bonsu, 2009). Unfortunately, according to WHO, “only 61 percent of Sub-Saharan Africans have access to clean water supply sources …” Yet MDC-T cannot afford to place all the blame on both ZANU-PF and ‘global trends’. Allegations of corruption, poor prioritizing and immaturity pervade their LAs. Tsvangirayi ‘expelled’ corrupt councillors though most still remain active members of his party. But for Election 2013 with vote-allergic citizens like my wife, my bet is that MDC-T electoral fortunes are for now sunk in deep boreholes.

-Rejoice Ngwenya is a Harare based political economist