03 Mar 2025 Bulawayo24news

The Bulawayo City Council has invested US$778 260 in installing new elevators at the Tower Block Municipal Building, with further plans to rehabilitate other key city assets, including the City Hall Clock. The six new elevators were commissioned last Friday, marking a significant upgrade for one of the city’s most essential administrative buildings.

The Tower Block serves as a crucial hub for municipal operations, handling financial transactions such as rate payments and other city services. However, for years, ageing elevators have posed a major challenge for both employees and residents, particularly those with mobility difficulties, forcing many to walk up as many as 12 floors.

City Mayor Councillor David Coltart acknowledged the deteriorated state of the previous lifts, calling them a “disgraceful condition” that had caused significant inconvenience to city workers and the public.

“This project commenced on 28 February 2024 and was completed ahead of schedule by the Schindler subsidiary company, Shindwe. My heartfelt thanks go to Shindwe and our own engineering staff, who ensured this project was completed within budget and ahead of schedule,” said Cllr Coltart.

He added that the US$778 260 spent on the project was an excellent investment of ratepayers’ money, as it improved service delivery and accessibility within the municipal offices.

With the successful completion of the Tower Block lift project, the council now aims to rehabilitate the City Hall lift and restore other historic city landmarks. Among these projects is the restoration of the City Hall Clock and the fountain located within the City Hall precinct.

“Our desire is to deliver a first-class service to all residents so that Bulawayo becomes the best-run city in Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa,” Cllr Coltart stated.

The installation of new elevators comes at a time when many buildings in Bulawayo have decommissioned their lifts due to the high cost of maintenance. Those that remain operational are often poorly maintained and frequently out of service. Incidents of people getting trapped in malfunctioning elevators have become increasingly common, making the city’s latest investment a significant improvement for municipal infrastructure.

Residents have welcomed the initiative, expressing hope that the council will continue upgrading public facilities to improve accessibility and service efficiency across the city.

20 February 2025 ZimEye

Bulawayo mayor and human rights lawyer David Coltart has weighed in on former U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s controversial statement regarding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump labeled Zelensky a “dictator” due to Ukraine’s lack of elections since Russia’s invasion.

In a pointed response, Coltart drew a historical parallel with World War II, highlighting that while the United Kingdom held elections during the war, it did not conduct a general election. The last general election before the war was in 1935, and the next only occurred in July 1945, following the war’s end. During the conflict, Britain was governed by a wartime coalition government led by Winston Churchill, comprising the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties. The general election due in 1940 was postponed under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act.

“No one would ever have called Churchill a dictator simply because he didn’t hold an election during World War 2,” Coltart emphasized, countering Trump’s assertion.

He noted that while the USA held elections during World War II, it was never under the direct threat of invasion, unlike Ukraine, which faces the harsh reality of 20% of its UN-recognized territory under Russian control and routine rocket and drone attacks.

“It is, in my opinion, unreasonable to expect Ukraine to hold a general election during the war,” Coltart stated. “How a country can hold free and fair elections in this context is beyond me.”

Trump’s original statement, shared widely on social media, criticized the Biden administration for spending $350 billion on Ukraine’s war effort, suggesting Zelensky mismanaged funds and alleging he played President Joe Biden “like a fiddle.” He further implied that only his leadership could negotiate an end to the war with Russia.

Coltart’s response is gaining traction, with many observers noting the historical precedent and the complexities of holding elections in wartime. The debate underscores the broader geopolitical tensions and the scrutiny over international support for Ukraine amid its ongoing conflict with Russia.

By Nizbert Moyo | Feb. 6, 2025

BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) says the Nyamandlovu aquifer is operating below capacity due to non-functional boreholes.

Bulawayo residents last week implored the local authority to prioritise resuscitating boreholes at the aquifer to alleviate the water crisis in the city.

Mayor David Coltart told Southern Eye that the local authority has no control over the aquifer.

“We have been asking the Zimbabwe National Water Authority to resuscitate Nyamandlovu boreholes and upgrade security, but it is still operating way below its design capacity. Unfortunately, because we do not own the infrastructure, unlike our dams, we have no control over how it operates,” Coltart said.

“We have taken advice from experts on how it is possible to increase its capacity, but once again because we do not own it and it is beyond the city’s boundaries, we have no power to expand its capacity in this way.”

Coltart, however, said the aquifer could not satisfy the city’s demands.

“So while this is a good theoretical option in practice, it depends on government will to address the issue,” he said.

“However, even if this is addressed, there are major environmental concerns linked to expanding the capacity of the Nyamandlovu aquifer and it is that there is no clear science about how it replenishes and this is a critical study which needs to be done prior to us drawing vast quantities of water from the aquifer,” the mayor said.

“So once again, it is, with respect, misplaced to think that Nyamandlovu aquifer can provide Bulawayo’s water needs on an environmentally sustainable and responsible manner going forward.”

The Gwayi-Shangani Dam project, mooted in 1912, is seen as a lasting solution to the city’s perennial water crisis.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa pledged to ensure the project is completed ahead of the 2023 elections.

However, since then, several deadlines have been missed.

William Vundla | Feb. 3, 2025

BULAWAYO supply dams have received less than expected inflows despite heavy rains while other dams in Matabeleland provinces are  spilling.

The inflows to dams such as uMzingwane have been heavily affected by artisanal mining which is leaving huge trenches in the catchment area, thereby affecting the flow of water to the dams.

According to Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa), as of January 29 this year, Mtshabezi stood at 66,8%, Insiza (42,6%), uMzingwane (34,7%), Upper Ncema (33,9%), Lower Ncema (7%) and  Inyankuni (9,8%).

In an interview recently, Zinwa spokesperson Majorie Munyonga, however, said inflows to the city’s supply dams were encouraging.

“Since the start of the rainy season, there have been significant inflows to the dams which by January 13, 2025, had received a cumulative total of 20,3 million cubic metres of water since December 18, 2024,” Munyonga told Southern Eye.

She said the levels seemed low because water was always in use.

“Their levels, however, appear depressed largely due to the fact that unlike irrigation dams, whose water is mainly utilised during the irrigation or winter season, water abstraction for urban supply dams remains constant and significant regardless of the time of the year,” Munyonga said.

 27 JAN 2025 ZimLive

BULAWAYO – A Chinese company duped the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) after entering a partnership to close open pits left by artisanal miners in Umzingwane River, only to be found carrying out riverbed mining.

EMA terminated the partnership with the company called Friends of the Environment, but it is not clear if anyone was prosecuted.

The revelation was made last week by Tafadzwa Muguti, the secretary for presidential affairs and devolution in the president’s office who visited the catchment areas of major dams in Matabeleland South to witness the environmental catastrophe caused by illegal mining.

The activities of the company damaged a bridge at the confluence of Umzingwane and Inyankuni rivers and officials say contributed to poor inflows into major dams supplying Bulawayo with water.

Muguti said: “We had a Chinese company here, Friends of the Environment, who partnered with EMA and the province later found out that by day they were closing the pits in the name of Friends of the Environment and by night they were mining.

“They destroyed a whole bridge while looking for gold.”

Rampant illegal mining is being blamed for low levels of water at dams supplying the City of Bulawayo, even after decent rains recently.

“There was a caninet directive which ordered all provinces to intensify the anti-alluvial mining campaign,” said Muguti.

“Now this is almost a 150-meter bridge which was destroyed completely in the name of mining. This is Umzingwane River, it supplies water to Bulawayo and the collapse of this bridge is causing water challenges as the water has stopped flowing.”

Zimbabwe has seen an influx of investment in mining from Chinese companies, but Muguti admits that “not everyone is coming for the benefit of Zimbabwe.”

Bulawayo mayor David Coltart has been sounding the alarm over illegal riverbed mining which he says is restricting water flows to dams supplying the city with water.

Speaking at a residents meeting in Nkulumane two weeks ago, Coltart said: “I rode my bicycle 40km towards Umzingwane Dam last Saturday to assess the situation myself. I was shocked – not a single stream was flowing after all that rain. The reason? Illegal gold panners!”

JANUARY 20, 2025 Breezefm

The Mayor of Bulawayo has announced that Matobo women artists will design his gown, as the council aims to replace the traditional mayoral gown, which he describes as a “colonial relic.”

Speaking at the official opening ceremony of the Matobo Goes Fashion exhibition on Friday meant to showcase the designs of Matobo women in art, the Mayor emphasized that the new gown will be ready by April.

He noted that collaborating with Matobo fashion designers will ensure it reflects the region’s rich cultural heritage and Zimbabwean traditions.

He also expressed his hope that the introduction of the new gown will demonstrate the city’s support for Matobo artists.

This initiative seeks to modernize the city and promote inclusivity, ensuring that the gown resonates with Bulawayo’s vision, culture, and heritage as they move forward.

Patricia Sibanda | Jan. 19, 2025 The Southern Eye

Frequent power cuts running into several hours per day are damaging water pumps at Bulawayo’s supply dams and worsening acute shortages of the commodity blamed on the 2024 El Nino-induced drought that ravaged the country, mayor David Coltart (pictured) has warned.

The Zimbabwe Power Company is failing to generate enough electricity to meet demand due to depressed generation capacity, resulting in rolling outages.

Unlike in previous years, power utility Zesa Holdings has not provided a timetable for load-shedding, and this hàs left individuals and businesses counting the costs of regular and intermittent power cuts.

In Bulawayo, the power cuts are worsening the city’s already dire water situation as they not only disrupt  water treatment works, but also lead to the damaging of critical pumps.

Coltart said the local authority had on several occasions engaged Zesa seeking to have the water treatment plants spared from load-shedding without success.

“If you go to Ncema, we have huge pumps there. They are not like your little borehole pumps that you can just turn on and off,” the mayor said in an interview.

“We have been pleading with Zesa to say before you load-shed, tell us so that we can switch our pumps off, instead they just switch off without warning.”

He said council wanted Zesa to spare the city’s waterworks from load-shedding to ensure uninterrupted supplies to residents as well as the power utility and other businesses. 

“Their unscheduled power cuts are damaging some of our pumps, and even when you have got water, we still have Zesa problem,” Coltart said.

“We are trying to get solar pump plants down at Ncema so that we can rely on solar power instead of depending on Zesa to run those pumps, but that cannot be done overnight.”

The local authority and Zesa were once at loggerheads over unexplained bills, resulting in the former turning to diesel generators for its main office in the central business district.

Bulawayo residents are going for days without water following the decommissioning of two supply dams last year after they ran dry.

The rains received to date have offered some hope that the situation at the city’s supply dams might improve, but indications from council show that the inflows have been very minimal.

Last year, the municipality appealed to the government to declare the city a water crisis area to enable the council to look for outside funding to undertake short-to-medium term interventions to alleviate the challenges.

However, the government turned down the request and instead, appointed a technical committee to undertake a research on how to address the water crisis.

The technical committee has failed to come up with interventions to address the city’s water crisis.

Patricia Sibanda | Jan. 15, 2025 | Newsday Zimbabwe

BULAWAYO City  Council (BCC) has said all sewage ponds in the city have collapsed resulting in an increase in pipe bursts.

“We have got a major problem with sewage. We have eight sewage ponds in the city and none of them is working.  Hence that is our purpose as the local authority to try and get them working,” Bulawayo mayor David Coltart told NewsDay.

“But it is a big problem and I appeal to all of you to help us because some of those blockages are caused by our negligence. We dump litter, plastic bottles, cutlery into the system and they block the pipes.”

He pleaded with residents to change their culture.

“We need every person to work with us so that we clean up the city. It starts with one person for us achieve the goal of cleaning up the city,” Coltart said.

Ward 22 councillor Mmeli Moyo said there was a shortage of tools used in maintaining sewer systems.

“We are supposed to have 40 of those wires but we are just managing the city with only six,” Moyo said.

Moyo said water shortage was also another major challenge as sewage has a co-relationship with water.

Recently ward 25 councillor Aleck Ndlovu disclosed that water shortage in Bulawayo is one of the main causes for sewage problems.

Ndlovu said long water-shedding hours being experienced in the city were constantly causing sewer blockages in the city.

Ndlovu said he held residents accountable for their carelessness in taking care of the drainage systems in their homes.

In 2022, Bulawayo councillors proposed that the local authority hires community plumbers to attend to pipe bursts.

Council blamed the incessant pipe bursts on ageing water and sewage reticulation infrastructure.

Council minutes show that city fathers are concerned about the increasing sewage pipe bursts which can trigger outbreaks of diseases such as cholera.

While it is a council requirement that the plumbers should have, among other things, a motor vehicle and plumbing equipment, councillor Silas Chigora said there was a need to relax some of the requirements.

In 2021, council said an estimated US$500 million was required over a 20-year period to upgrade the city’s water and sewage reticulation infrastructure.

Bulawayo continues to lose water due to pipe bursts and leaks, with an average of 90 faults being received per day.

Council is failing to attend to pipe bursts on time due to manpower shortages, resulting in backlogs.

In some suburbs, sewage flows into people’s homes, exposing residents to waterborne diseases.

In 2020, a diarrhoea outbreak killed 13 people in Luveve and infected several thousands.

The outbreak was blamed on contamination of potable water by sewage emanating from burst pipes.