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Thandeka Moyo, Chronicle Reporter 

THE Bulawayo City Council has temporarily suspended the 48-hour water shedding programme that was introduced in February with the local authority reporting major progress in the rehabilitation of the Criterion Water Works. 

In a statement yesterday, the Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube, said the suspension would be reviewed on Friday August 9, 2019. 

“The City of Bulawayo would like to advise consumers that it will be temporarily suspending the water shedding programme that was introduced in February 2019 with immediate effect. The suspension will be reviewed on Friday August 9, 2019,” he said. 

“The suspension comes after considerable progress of major rehabilitation works at Criterion Water Works, and the normalisation of the water distribution system. Currently the raw water holding reservoir at Criterion, which is Bulawayo’s buffer, has continued to gain in volume with volumes currently at 3.9M”. 

According to Mr Dube, the local authority will continue to monitor the reservoir level as ideally it should be at 5.5M. 

“It’s recovery and stability can be only be reassured through the support of consumers who are expected to continue conserving water and adhering to the approved daily rationing allocations. Excessive use of potable water, power shedding and maintenance work disruptions may result in the reintroduction of shedding,” he said. 

Mr Dube urged residents to continue conserving water. 

A household in the western suburbs is supposed to consume a maximum of 450 litres daily, low density suburbs inclusive of cottages and workers cottages should not exceed 650 litres per day while residential flats with individual meters should not use more than 400 litres a day.

The local authority once introduced a 72 –hour water shedding programme in April when its reservoirs were critically low due to pumping problems.

The 72-hour schedule was later scrapped as the situation improved though daily consumption levels continued to rise above the 105Mega Litres which the city can pump daily. 

At one point, the local authority indefinitely shutdown water supplies to the entire city to stabilise water levels at its reservoirs, which was followed by a 48-hour schedule. 

Bulawayo’s supply dams, just like many others in the country, did not receive significant inflows during the 2018/19 rainy season.—@thamamoe