By Bustop TV Reporter
There is chaos in Norton with incessant water wors after the town council was cut off by Harare.
According to reports, Norton owes Harare about RTGS $44 million. Harare demanded that the town council pays $4m instalments an agreement Norton reneged on.
In a statement Norton Town Council public relations department confirmed this development.
“Norton Town Council would like to inform it’s valued residents that there will be a disruption in water supply. This is due to billing challenges we are currently facing with City of Harare. We hope to have reached a common understanding by Friday and we are optimistic that normal supplies will immediately resume. All inconveniences caused are sincerely regretted.”
Norton Residents Alliance (NORA) have expressed their displeasure.
Vice Chairperson of NORA, Tichaona Makonyonga, said, “People are paying exhobitant rates especially on water charges as from January. It is very unfair to the residents to hear that council is failing to pay for water to the Harare City. It is also unfair for Harare City to abruptly cut off supply to Norton as water is a basic human right. Modalities have to be set to rectify the impasse because the ordinary resident is suffering. As residents, we call on the Ministry of Local Government to intervene. Residents are tired of excuses from the council.”
Ward 9 resident, Tapiwa Chigunwe, said that a section of residents is considering taking legal action against Norton Council and called for the government to intervene.
“We need to sue NTC in their personal capacity if they don’t discuss the issue of reopening of water by today. This is a serious issue and whoever gave this decision to block for water should be jailed. The Government of Zimbabwe has a mandate to provide free 500litres of water to every household and they disconnect every drop.what if they is outbreak of Typhoid and Cholera this means that the social bill goes high, more so the government is going to foot those bills. NTC was supposed to be paying City of Harare their bills but instead they had to do more workshops that benefits them and buying graders. I am quite amazed how they put anything to benefit them is a priority to NTC but now the whole of Norton is suffering due to misplaced priorities. It’s high time Government of Zimbabwe interferes. We have not been notified as residents but they did it today due to responds from rate payers. NTC owes more than 20milion rtgs to City of Harare. They get their monthly salaries, airtime, fuel, benefits and T&S when they go for workshops but they don’t put us as residents first. It’s high time NTC must be liquidated.”
Norton is a town in the middle of two water bodies, Lake Chivero and Darwendale but has to rely on water from Harare City.
