Opinion article By Rev Anglistone T Sibanda|The recent outbreak of cholera and typhoid in Harare is an embarrassing scenario in a country that has so much potential leap to into being one of Africa’s leading economies.
That growth would be characterized by a total eradication of poverty related epidemics such as typhoid and Cholera.
Every citizen is now on high alert and all forms of media awash with information about cholera but we seldom do an introspection to find out why we have cholera in this day and age and seek strategies to deal with those causes.
The outbreak of a nineteenth century disease that is sadly killing the poor and innocent civilians, is a direct outcome of hydropolitics, corruption and poor governance.
The governments, both at local level i.e. Harare City Council and the Government of Zimbabwe are squarely to blame for killing innocent children and poor citizens.
In my view, the Human Rights Commission should do a detailed investigation into the causes of Cholera and hold the authorities to account.
In his analysis on the genesis of Bulawayo’s water problems, Prof Mucha Musemwa argues that the problems of water in the country’s second largest city are a result of politics, in what he terms “disciplining the dissident city”.
I therefore draw a parallel to assert the view that Musemwa presents and transmit the same argument to the context of Harare.
The formation of the MDC in 1999 saw the ushering in of a new era and a new political dispensation in a city that had been controlled by ZANU PF since independence.
The urban voters in the country’s cities switched their political allegiance to the new political party that had been backed by the country’ biggest labor movement, the ZCTU.
The dispensation created a rift between the rural and the urban voters where the rural voters, having benefitted from the fast track land redistribution exercise whose wounds on the economy we still lick to date, became die- hard ZANU PF strongholds.
While the rural voters benefited from the land reform and did nothing significant on those farms, save hunting the wildlife and destroying the infrastructure, the urban voters saw the collapse of industry and massive unemployment .
The winning of the Local government seats by the MDC created a situation where the President Mugabe and his ZANU Ministers lived and conducted most their business within an MDC controlled council area.
Time would not permit me to chronicle the long debacles and enormous tensions between the “godfather of local government destruction” , Dr Ignatius Chombo and the Harare Councillors that saw the dismissal of the councilors at some point and the darkest days during the Mzvare Sekesai Makwavarara Commission.
What followed was a directive by cabinet to implement the amendments that had been made in 1997 on the Water Act.
The Water Act had been amended to replace the Water Act of 1971 and one of the progressive changes that were introduced was the change from the policy of water being a social good and the adoption of a policy that made water to be an economic good.
According to the new water act, all water belongs to the President, hence all water is national water, thus abolishing a white farmer monopoly over water rights.
The priority date system was abolished and water rights were debunked from land rights enabling communal people to also have water rights.
The changes in the law also created a parastatal, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA).
This new water authority was tasked with a vast mandate of being the sole body responsible for the development and management of all water bodies in Zimbabwe.
Manzungu argues that ZINWA lacked institutional capacity to meet the daunting task.
In a bid to “democratize” water bodies management, the Act created Catchment Councils where members are generally appointees of the minister of Water. The appointment of chairpersons of Catchment councils and other members remained a prerogative of the minister, creating room for politicization of water.
In the case of Local authorities like Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare, Masvingo etc that were run by MDC, it meant that once ZINWA took over the management of their water reticulation systems, ZANU PF was in fact controlling the water supplies to the cities by proxy.
In the case of Harare, the Wars between HCC and Minister of Local Government exacerbated the situation and in fact saw two powerful ZANU PF ministers ganging up against the MDC council; the minister of local government and the minister of Water and in some instances the minister of energy.
The minister of Water, in terms of the Water act and the ZINWA act controls all the water bodies through ZINWA and as such political machinations and shenanigans saw Harare go dry while surrounded by lakes.
The Situation created a sprouting of boreholes and a threat to the water table as well as numerous water processing companies that sell ‘safe drinking water’, which means that safe drinking water became a prerogative of those who can afford to buy purified water.
An investigation into the ownership of most of those companies is imperative; l suspect some of those who are supposed to be ensuring efficient service delivery may be having conflicted interests in the mineral water business.
In such a situation, they may be benefiting from the situation they created and Harare may never have affordable, clean, safe and portable water running through the taps as water barons may not want that to happen as it militates against their business interests.
The equipment at Morton Jeffery Waterworks got dilapidated and obsolete and ZINWA had no capacity to repair.
We have always been told by consecutive ministers of water that there is government investment and at some stage funding from China for the refurbishment of Morton Jeffrey waterworks equipment and yet there has been no results.
The equipment and the infrastructure has over the years collapsed and has become too small to supply the ballooning population and there has so far not been any substantive plan to address the situation of population versus services gap.
The Harare situation is further compounded by the fact that the planning of the city created a situation where sewage effluent easily flows to the water bodies meant for domestic use.
The flowing of raw sewage into Lake Chivero, Manyame and other rivers polluted and contaminated the water bodies, thus demanding large volumes of treatment chemicals and astute and sound management, which has not been found thus far due to corruption, nepotism and other isms that militate against the principle of sound management and good governance.
There were reports of supplies of wrong chemicals and fears of cheap quality chemicals being supplied by bogus companies owned by those who are well connected.
With ZANU PF controlling ZINWA that supplies cities with water while the MDC controlled the local authorities, it therefore meant that he who controls the Water bodies sought to influence the politics in the city via backdoor, resulting in some Surbubs in Harare going for 15 years without running water; what Musemwa calls “disciplining the dissident cities” by ZANU PF government.
To exacerbate, further compound and intoxicate the situation, soon after the infamous Operation Murambatsvina, ZANU PF members who were well connected and protected by the state and the party started becoming land barons and formed dubious Cooperatives at some points supported by the local government minister.
Organizations aligned to ZANU PF such as Rev Obadiah Musindo’s Destiny of Africa Network and several others became main actors in distributing housing stands in unserviced areas to canvass for votes for the party.
This unorthodox land allocation by land barons created wanton destruction to the ecosystems and some MDC councilors followed suite in the quest to get rich at the expense serving the people and allocated desperate citizens residential stands in wetlands and other protected areas that are meant to create natural buffers.
Natural buffers are meant to protect and sustain the environment: trees are to clean the air by absorbing carbon dioxide while natural filtration systems occur underground to purify underground water.
The massive and spontaneous proliferation of houses in poorly planned and un serviced lands saw people digging septic tanks and installing Blair latrines at close range with wells and boreholes, contaminating underground water in the process.
The taking away of Water management by ZiNWA through the ZINWA Act, also took away HCC’s source of revenue making the local authority unable to meet its service delivery obligations.
With massive unemployment, people failed to pay their bills and HCC had challenges of billing systems and government in its populist approachs directed HCC to scrap bills for residents and we celebrated and went to vote unknowingly we were celebrating the coming of cholera.
Large numbers of people have resorted to the informal sector to earn a living, creating a colossal problem of overcrowding in the city where vending is done anywhere and everywhere at anytime by anyone and there is no infrastructure nor facilities such as toilets to maintain hygiene.
In the case of vendors in illegal spaces in Harare, both the MDC and ZANU PF are equally guilty.
The harassment of vendors by the Harare City Police became politicized with the former “supporting vendors” who are in reality a problem in the streets and created a time bomb for such diseases as Cholera due to populist politics.
Responding the MDC’s backing of illegal and dangerous vending practices, the ZANU PF government went to the extreme and deployed the police and the army to try and control vending which had become in fact a State Security threat.
Both parties may not be willing to end the problems that push people into the street as they often use them as tools for political activities.
We all saw how the same vulnerable people were manipulated and used by ZANU during their Anti Mujuru “Tsunami Rallies” or “Munhu wese kuna Amai” demonstrations in Harare.
Civil Society was also not to be outdone and began Vendors Associations who really do not care much about vendors but created a livelihood for the directors who got opportunities to travel around the world and living in five star hotels on behalf of the poor and vulnerable vendors who are risking their lives in cholera prone environs trying to survive.
True to the fears of the state, the same vendors have been used in the MDC aligned social movements such as #Tajamuka in mobilizing for “Citizens action” that has a political outcome to benefit the MDC.
The recent pre election results announcement violence that left at least 6 people dead is one example of Civil Society – MDC conflation, oblivious or totally uncaring about the dangers of illegal vending in the Lagos style that Harare has become.
As Chambers noted; poverty in Africa benefits the politicians and sustains them in power or opens doors for them to go into power.
Poverty weakens resilience and coping capacities, increasing vulnerability: the more poor you are the more susceptible they become and epidemics such as cholera are prone in poverty stricken areas.
The cumulative effect of corruption, hydropolitics and political instrumentalization of disorder as Chabal and Daloz accurately described such a situation, is such epidemics as Cholera and typhoid that sadly is killing poor and innocent citizens.
Those in power and those are seeking power create the conducive environment for cholera to break out are safe in hotels or highly protected homes with sophisticated water purification systems and some even import spring and mineral water for themselves and when they or their close family members fall sick, they fly out to other countries for treatment while innocent children in Budiriro, Glen view etc are dying like flies.
They then come to funerals or send condolence messages and few donations and end there, yet we keep electing them and even fight against each other over them.
In light of these views, therefore submit that both ZANU PF and the MDC assisted by various versions of Civil Society groups are guilty for creating cholera in Harare due to their policies and political shenanigans and Citizens have to judge them accordingly.
I therefore suggest the following as ideas towards ending Cholera and saving lives.
1. urgent address of the currency or liquidity issues.
2. A serious, radical and robust intervention on the economy to create jobs and reduce the influx of people in the streets and reduce poverty levels.
3. Adherence to the Tibaijuka Report recommendations on Habitat issues to create sustainability, eliminate red tape and bureaucratic bottlenecks in housing delivery.
4. Urgent policy review:
The Water act and the ZINWA act must be amended and ZINWA become a watchdog regulating authority on quality and safely while letting local authorities and private players to handle the development of infrastructure and management of water.
The regional town and planing act of 1976 must be amended to sanitize and liberate the habitat access for citizens.
5. Radical action against corruption-land barons must be arrested and government sanitize the housing sector.
6. Depoliticization of land, water and local governance.
7.Access to primary healthcare and other social services must be improved at all levels.
8.Citizen education on health and hygiene must systematic and structured to enable effective monitoring of communities.
9. We need a strong, vibrant, objective and none partisan civic society to monitor and put pressure on governments (local and central )
Nineteen century epidemics must be extinct in modern society and it is our role and responsibility to make sure we save lives as citizens and government at all levels.
Anglistone Sibanda is a devepment practitioner and consultant, human rights and peace activist, social commentator and entrepreneur specializing agriculture, renewable energy development and sustainable infrastructural development.
Director of Shalom Project, a Faith Based Civic group and CEO of UnaPower Project P/L group of consultants; he writes in his personal capacity.