Posted By Own Staff Saturday, 06 March 2010 01:14

About 200 Garikai housing units in Cowdray Park in Bulawayo have been using water for free since year 2005 when they were accommodated following the government’s Operation Murambatsvina.

The revelations come at a time when the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is struggling to recover debts totalling  over US$4 million from ratepayers. 
A document leaked from the council’s offices revealed that 200 housing units at Garikai houses in Cowdray Park have been for the past four years consuming water without paying the council a move that the city fathers  was a drawback to the council’s efforts to deliver services to ratepayers who always settled their bills to the council on time.

The document compiled by the engineering department led by its acting Director, Job Jika Ndebele, and circulated among council departments, revealed that the 200 housing units had no water meters but had water connected to the houses under unclear circumstances.

After the then ZANU PF government embarked on the ruthless OperationMurambatsvina in 2004, which saw people losing their back+yard houses
and industries, the same government tried to console the people by introducing  Operation Garikai/ Hlalani Kuhle which saw just a handful of the  victims getting houses constructed by the government.In another revelation, it emerged that most of the people who got houses under that programme were not victims while the real victims were still failing to get accommodation.

Efforts to get comment from BCC Senior Public Relations Officer, Nesisa Mpofu were fruitless as she was said to have gone to Harare on council business.