THE Harare City Council is prioritizing the resuscitation of the city’s water supply as it moves to improve the image of the city through its recently launched Urban Renewal Program.
Addressing stakeholders who attended the launch of the program this afternoon City of Harare mayor Herbert Gomba said water was a top priority for the city.
“Very clear on our dashboard is the need to improve on water supply to the residents of Harare and various interventions are being implemented and we will update you regularly on that.”
“My council is going to purchase water bowsers to be deployed in areas with erratic supplies of water while plans are also underway to purchase mobile water treatment plants.”
Some parts of Harare suburbs have not had water supply for more than 6 months whilst the council has failed to fix water pipes as well as sewage pipes that are bursting every day in and around the central business district.
“Water is an important factor in the urban renewal program and we as council have come up with temporary measures to address that.“
Gomba also said the council had succumbed to pressure from, ratepayers and city dwellers who were demanding more and better services hence the introduction of the urban renewal program.
“There has been a gradual demand for more and better council services in areas such as waste collection, housing, road quality and water supply among other services. We have been affected by problems such as sewer bursts because our infrastructure is no longer able to cope with the ever-rising population.”
The city of Harare has been facing problems with delivering services to the people among them servicing bursting sewer systems; refuse collection and fixing the dilapidated road networks.
Gomba said the council’s was moving towards mordenising the city’s image not only for the safety of the residents but also to secure investments for the city.
“The urban renewal program is meant to improve the lives of our residents, make it much safer, secure and comfortable. We need to attract investors into this city and there is no better way to do that than the way we appear to them.”
Gomba said the city has engaged with various stakeholders to help fix the current problems and would continue to engage work with them to assure better services for city dwellers.
He further said in order to achieve a World Class City they will demolish some old buildings in and around the CBD whilst refurbishing all historical buildings.
“We will soon pull down our toilets in the CBD and build bigger and customer responsive facilities which augur well with our vision of becoming a World Class City.”
Gomba said the City was much concerned with its image and would appeal private property owners to join the city in refurbish their buildings.
The program started with the repainting of the Town House and the mayor pledged to repaint all council buildings in the city of Harare.