MUTARE– Residents of high density suburb in Mutare are facing a health time bomb as they have gone for four months without water following the vandalism of a transformer which was used to pump water to their homes.
Hundreds of residents in Triang of Raheem, a newly developed residential suburb in Dangamvura have not been accessing the precious liquid as the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company (ZETDC) is yet to replace the transformer.
Residents in the suburb have expressed their concern over the ‘lackadaisical’ attitude of the power utility ZESA for failing to attend to the issue in time.
Tendai Samanga a resident in Triang said they are now worried over their health as people are now fetchi9ng water from makeshift wells, exposing them to water borne disease.
“We have gone for almost four months without water after our transformer was vandalised, we use electricity to pump water into our homes.
“We don’t have water, we are fetching water from dirty wells, we are worried that ZESA has been lackadaisical about this issue, how about if we are infected by coronavirus and cholera and other water borne diseases,” he said
Another resident Susan Kozwa said women were bearing the brunt of the problems as they are the one tasked by default to fetch water from unprotected sources.
She said children are also not spared as they are under the primary care of their mothers who are now forced to do laundry with water fetched from unclean sources.
“We as women we are more on the receiving end as we need water to do our laundry, ewe g with our children especially girls and they are exposed.
“We have approached responsible authorities and they have said they don’t have money to replace the transformer at the moment,” she said
ZETDC boss Milton Munodawafa said while ZESA was aware of the problem, the power utility is facing financial constraints to attend to the issue as cases of vandalism of transformers were on the rise.
“Yes, we are very much aware of the challenge in that area Triang of Raheem, but our challenge we have a long list of areas which need transformers but we are going to solve the matter very soon,” he said
