Local water advocacy group, Community Water Alliance (CWA), has expressed dissatisfaction over the recent warning issued by Lands, Water, and Rural Development Minister, Anxious Masuka, regarding the drilling and extraction of underground water without proper permits.
CWA director, Hardlife Mudzingwa, voiced his concerns about the impact of the law on citizens and highlighted the prevailing water crisis and changing climatic patterns in Zimbabwe.
“The law gives power to Catchment councils and ZINWA on regulating drilling. Part of the reasoning behind the law is to regulate use of ground water. However, there are peculiar realities facing citizens in Zimbabwe and those realities makes the communication an insult to citizens. These realities emanate from both shortage of potable water and changing climatic patterns. An example is Chitungwiza Municipality. The Municipality has no water treatment plant of its own. It relies on the mercy of the City of Harare.
“Chitungwiza residents require 70 megalitres of water per day for them to access adequate potable water. Chitungwiza Municipality is getting around 14 megalitres per week from City of Harare, meaning only 2 megalitres are availed daily against 70 megalitres required. Citizens have therefore helped themselves by drilling boreholes within yards some of which are 300 square metres yards that are not ideal for borehole drilling,” said Mudzingwa
He highlighted the existence of boreholes drilled by development partners during emergency responses to cholera outbreaks and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Besides these boreholes, there are also boreholes drilled by development partners as emergency interventions during cholera response and COVID-19 pandemic. Boreholes drilled by development partners have authorization from local authorities and had a verbal support from government. But paperwork in terms of the law is not there. That is the same situation with Presidential Piped Water Schemes which were drilled in Harare and other towns. They were emergency responses without permits required at law.
“Besides boreholes within towns where the need was potable water, there are also boreholes within communal areas. These boreholes responded to the vagrancy of changing and varying climatic patterns. They allowed smallholder farmers to move away from rain-fed agriculture which is now risk due to climate change. They also shortened distances travelled by women as they look for water within rural areas. Although the necessary paperwork may not have been there, the good practice from a climate resilience standpoint should never be criminalized,” he said
Mudzingwa called for the government to regularize boreholes where appropriate, acknowledging that there might be challenging cases, such as boreholes on small residential stands.
“My humble view is that Government must regularize these boreholes where it’s ideal. There may be difficult cases where regularization is tricky. These cases involve boreholes on 300 square metres residential stands. But still, it may be ideal for government to first address the shortage of potable water before RULING BY THE LAW. Yes, the law provides for what has been detailed in the newspaper advert, but where authorities fail as duty bearers to provide potable water there has to be some understanding. People do not drink provisions of the law and rural communities do not irrigate using the law.” said Mudzingwa
