By Staff Writer
THE City of Harare is pressing ahead with prepaid water meters roll out despite an outcry from citizens and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs).
This was revealed during the City of Harare 2026-30 strategic planning stakeholder consultation meeting on Monday, where mayor Jacob Mafume said the meters were aimed at improving water billing transparency and efficiency while addressing long-standing issues with the current billing system.
“We have done a project for prepaid water meters. Twenty thousand are in a row. If not here, we are going to manufacture over 300 000 water meters, prepaid smart meters, so that we will be able to build,” he said.
“The ERP [Enterprise Resource Planning] is there. In terms of that, we have resigned BIQ. Our billing is difficult to understand.
“And we do hope that we’ll be able to get rid of the challenges in our billing and come up with a coherent bill and be able to collect better. A collection system that is better. We’re also hoping to get a contribution on housing.”
Acting town clerk Phakamile Mabhena said there was an urgent need to interrogate the performance of the existing plan.
“For us to formulate a new strategic plan, it is imperative that the city administrators, our policymakers and few of our stakeholders interrogate first the performance of our Absinthe plan,” he said.
“We want to know first how we fared, where we are currently and where we want to go, so that we plan how to get there and get where. What does 2038 mean to us?
“It means a well-planned city that supports economic development, transforming our lives into liveable and sustainable platforms.
“Having a green and water-free environment by 2035 (and) a city with traffic and well-regulated roads, a city with access to water and food sanitation.”
He said the goals were aimed at establishing a model of innovation and resilience, ensuring public safety and environmental sustainability for future generations.
“A safe and secure environment that guarantees public safety. A city with affordable and decent housing, sustainable development and life-safe development,” Mabhena said.
“A roadmap with clear checkpoints that achieve the goals set in the targets, which have been attained by our able strategic plans for development.
“I took a deliberate stance that we need to evaluate the performance using two distinct approaches. That is, internal self-assessment and external assessment by our stakeholders.”
