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Brighton Gumbo Business Reporter
THE Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is working on rehabilitating six waste water treatment plants that have not been operational for some time. Speaking during a Water Sanitation Hygiene and Energy (WASHen) tour of the Southern Area Sewage Treatment (SAST) plant in Bulawayo last week, council spokesperson, Nesisa Mpofu, said the project was being facilitated by the government’s $13.4 million borrowing powers granted to the BCC in October last year.

“The council identified six plants in the city namely Aisleby 1 and 2, SAST 1 and 2, Thorngrove, and Luveve’s Treatment Works where the scope of the project will focus,” said Mpofu.

“These haven’t been working properly in recent years resulting in some of the effluent that passed through them getting discharged into the environment without being treated.”

She said the city fathers were presently sourcing funds from local financial institutions using the borrowing powers to fund the plants’ resuscitation project.

“We’re currently sourcing financial resources from the banks using the $13.4 million government borrowing powers to get the rehabilitation project started,” said Mpofu.

She said the council has managed to secure funds from a local financier to assist in the hiring of a consultant who will help identify the needs to be addressed.

“We’ve secured funds from BancABC to facilitate getting a consultant whose scope will be to come up with an engineering document that will eloquently identify the problems with the plants so that we get the project 100 percent working,” Mpofu said.

BCC engineer responsible for water works, Dhumani Gwetu, said the biggest challenge to treating waste to acceptable levels were the Zesa power cuts.

“We’ll engage Zesa to have special lines that’ll not be subjected to load-shedding to supply power to the plants,” he said.

He said the Aisleby plant caters for waste that comes from the low-density areas, the Central Business District and the industrial areas, while the one at Thorngrove covers a number of the city’s high-density suburbs.

“Southern Area Sewage Treatment works covers areas like Pumula South, part of Pumula East and North, Kelvin, Emganwini, Nkulumane and Nketa,” said Gwetu.