THE Mazowe Catchment Council (MCC) has suspended former police Assistant Commissioner Everisto Pfumvuti’s water permit for exceeding the limit of the water he was authorised to extract and failure to submit water samples for testing, The Standard can reveal.
By PHILLIP CHIDAVAENZI
The suspension of the permit (No. 20142G) was done in line with the provisions of Section 17 (3) of Statutory Instrument 47 of 2000 (Water Sub-catchment Council’s Regulations).
MCC chairperson Garikai Musikavanhu, who also signed the letter of suspension written to Pfumvuti on Friday declined to shed more light on the developments.
“I don’t comment on such issues in the newspaper [because] that will be unprofessional. I will make a comment when all due processes have been taken care of,” he said.
Pfumvuti is a former officer commanding Support Unit. The Mazowe Catchment Manager, identified as G F Manzira, said in the suspension letter the council decided to suspend the permit due to Pfumvuti’s “over-abstraction”.
“We have noted that your company has abstracted more than your total permitted allocation within one single month [sic]. Your total allocation for the two boreholes was limited to 50 000 cubic metres from just one borehole over the month of October,” reads the letter in part.
According to Section 118 of the Water Act chapter 20:24, anyone who contravened its provisions shall be liable to a fine or be imprisoned for a period not exceeding two years; “or to both such fine and such imprisonment.”
Pfumvuti was warned to stop extracting water from the boreholes as that would be a violation of the Water Act and other relevant regulations.
Efforts to get in touch with Pfumvuti were fruitless as his phone was continuously ringing.
Water suppliers in Harare have made huge profits through the sale of water as the municipal authorities have failed to supply the precious liquid to all its residents.
Early this month, however, the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) banned all bulk water suppliers operating in the capital, Harare, from extracting water from boreholes located in residential areas.
The authority said in a statement the ban, which was effective from October 1, was effected because the operations of bulk water suppliers had resulted in other residents failing to get water from their boreholes due to excessive drop in ground levels.
“The measure has been put in place after the realisation that quite a number of boreholes in residential areas are being used to supply huge and unsustainable quantities of water, some of which are far above the permitted abstraction volumes,” it said.
