City council, Rain and the Resident

While the farming populace has been prepared for the rain, the city council Department of works has been caught unaware and unready. They have again like in the past years dilly dallied with time and resources.    

It is 5 PM and Glen Norah residents shuffle and heave, the water threatens to wash away precious furniture and even the very essence of sanctuary. Outside, the kombis and cars are immobile and nearly awash. Yet indoors they heave some more dreading the prospect of their beds turning into rafts at night but the water draws in again, this time knee-high, faster and dirtier. They heave again until the muscles tire. The tide is turbulent, the gutters are now chocking and clogged, sofas are afloat, beds submerged and the linen wet. It is the third day and the rain has not ceased. Sandbags are worthless now as the water cuts right through them.

‘This is what we have experienced in the past few days that the rain has beat the ground,’ said a resident by the name of Mudhara Banda. It is the mandate of the council to clean thecity gutters and drainage system before the rains set in but guess what, they pilethe debris just next to the drainage, cars and people trump on it and it goes back into where it doesn’t belong. In Harare’s Glen Norah C area, the drainage system has partially or not at all been serviced for some time now owing to whatever reasons.

‘What these workers do is that they clean the part that is visible and leave the essential part,’ (he points at the tunnel leading up High Glen road), one that is clogged with soil, tree branches, maize stalks and a washed away makeshift stall(musika). Anonymous residents described the reticulation process as flawed,’ hongu vanoedza kuchenesa mugero nguva nenguva asi vanosiirira mwena uyo uripasi uyo uriwo unovhara mvura ndoosaka tichiramba tichiona dambudziko iri gore negore(yes they partially clean the drains, and they dread that tunnel there, yet it is part of the system, that is why we are faced with this problem every year)’The MP and councilor have not done their jobs.

Anonymous victims of the rains, those who had their furniture destroyed went to the department of works and were told that some the machinery used to clean the drainage was in Dzivarasekwa doing maintenance work there. But the drainage system has not been fully serviced for years now!

The residents have had to sleep on wet beds year after year while everyone else slips in the warmth of their homes. Are the taxpayers getting what their money is worthy, who is following up Department of works activities. Has the machinery been servicing Dzivarasekwa all along or should we call in UN because frankly we now have the problem of seasonal internal refugees.