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Councillor James Sithole

Temba Dube Senior Reporter
MAKOKOBA suburb in Bulawayo is sitting on a health time bomb with blocked toilets and burst sewers now common.
Residents yesterday said they have been subjected to flowing raw sewage for a long time.
Children around the suburb were playing with effluent from four overflowing sewage manholes around Makokoba, with adults watching.
The residents said they had grown tired of reporting the problem to the Bulawayo City Council as it often recurred at the same places hours after being attended to.

“Since the establishment of the call centre by council last year, the response time has improved. The council team normally takes about one hour to respond to burst sewer reports, compared to up to one month that they used to take. However, the same manholes would be overflowing hours after being fixed. Maybe these people do not know what they are doing,” said Mary Moyo one of the residents.

Another resident, Brian Muyaka, said residents no longer saw anything amiss with burst sewers.
“It is only visitors who are bothered by the smell. We are now used to it. The only thing we are afraid of is an outbreak of disease. If cholera breaks out in this suburb, the only way to contain and treat it may be to evacuate the whole suburb and treat residents at a fixed secluded location,” said Muyaka.

Mavis Ncube, 63, on being asked why children were being left to play with the dirty water, said it was the only place where they could play.

“There is raw sewage flowing from 5th Street right up to 10th. The toilets are always blocked. The streets here are narrow. However, they are the only place where children can play with adult supervision. We cannot keep them indoors all the time. We only pray that they do not fall sick. We are also worried that nowadays council does not put that white powder on the flowing water, which I think is a chemical that neutralises germs,” said Ncube.

A youth, Musa Ndlovu, said he thought the sewer reticulation system had collapsed in the suburb.
“The situation has been like this for as long as I can remember. No matter how many times they fix it, the sewage keeps flowing in the streets and the toilets are always blocked. I think the entire system has collapsed and needs an overhaul,” said Ndlovu.

The chairperson of the residents association,  Frank Phiri, said council was dealing with the symptoms of the problem instead of addressing the cause.

“I worked in council’s plumbing department for about 17 years. I can tell you that if there is a sewer burst, it means the system choked up somewhere upstream. Clearing the immediate area of blockage will only bring temporary relief,” said Phiri.

“Due to a shortage of resources, I think council has not been clearing sand traps, meant to stop solids that have the potential of clogging up the system.”

Contacted for comment, Councillor James Sithole, under whose jurisdiction Makokoba falls, said he was aware of the problem.
“The problem is that the sewer system is now too old. Makokoba is one of the oldest suburbs in Bulawayo and it was initially built for bachelors. Now the old system is handling about 20 times the population it was designed for. However, council has come up with a water reticulation master plan designed to deal with the problem. The only problem is a shortage of resources to implement it,” said Clr Sithole.
He said water shedding was not helping matters as people used the toilets when there was no water and when it became available, it would not have enough pressure to push the waste through the system, resulting in chokes within the system.

“While council works at amassing enough capital to implement the master plan, the best we can do as residents is to keep on reporting burst sewers early,” said Clr Sithole.