PRISCA MANYIWA-MASUKU
MIRROR REPORTER

KWEKWE – Water bodies in and around Kwekwe District are heavily polluted, a team doing a master plan for Zibagwe Rural District Council has established.
Underground and borehole water around Empress is probably the worst affected.
The team blamed the pollution on rampant mining in the district.
Zibagwe RDC lead planner, Johnson Mikuku told The Mirror in an interview that water bodies including boreholes in Zhombe are polluted through the deposit of mining affluent into water sources.
“We have water bodies that have been polluted including Somalala Dam. The water has turned brown due to pollution, there is a mine depositing it’s affluent direct into the dam and no one seem to have noticed that.
“Boreholes have been polluted including those drilled by councils. Two boreholes in Empress at Colombina Business Center are polluted.
“We have several private people who drilled boreholes and they are hitting polluted water so Empress area is one of the most affected whose underground water is polluted,” said Mikuku.
Meanwhile Rural Investment Development Agency data shows that there is a total of 1063 boreholes in Kwekwe district. Out of these, 692 are functional while 371 are on breakdown.
The most common type of boreholes are the bush pump which is labour intensive. Most of the 33 wards indicated that they do have pump minders. However spare parts for the boreholes are in short supply.
The master plan consultations also revealed that, villagers are walking long distances to access water.
“Borehole breakdowns are increasing the distance travelled to access clean water by 2 to 15km in some wards. As a result, villagers are opting for unclean water sources such as rivers and dams,” said Mikuku.