Source: Water crisis threatens Bulawayo’s smart city ambition – CITEZW
Bulawayo’s ambition to become a smart and sustainable city is under threat from a deepening water crisis, with the mayor warning that failure to urgently upgrade key supply infrastructure this year would amount to a critical failure by the city.
Addressing councillors at the recently held full council meeting, Mayor David Coltart said the city’s earlier ambition to be a “smart and transformative city by 2025” had not been realised, leaving residents grappling with persistent water cuts and deteriorating roads.
“It is very easy to say these things, but it is another thing entirely to deliver on that,” he told councillors.
“In many respects the city was not smart and transformative, with residents facing water shortages and the roads being in worse conditions.”
Coltart said the new target would require a more practical, technology-driven approach to governance, including modernising accounting and payment systems to make them easily accessible.
He said infrastructure upgrades would also be central to the plan, highlighting proposals to install solar-powered street and traffic lights as part of a broader push towards renewable energy.
On environmental sustainability, the mayor said Bulawayo aimed to respond to climate change through an aggressive tree-planting programme of up to 5 000 trees, with a preference for indigenous species.
“My personal hope is to be planting indigenous trees, not exotic ones,” he said, adding that nurseries and youth involvement would be key to the programme’s success.
However, water supply dominated the meeting, with Coltart expressing frustration over delays in implementing technical recommendations made two years ago to upgrade key infrastructure.
Despite proposals to rehabilitate the Ncema Pump Station and major pipelines supplying the city, he said progress had been slow.
“It needs to be our absolute priority this year,” he said, warning that failure to begin upgrades and procure new pipelines by the end of the year would amount to a serious setback.
Coltart also pointed to funding shortfalls for the long-delayed Gwayi-Shangani Dam project, thanking the government for allocating ZiG200 million towards completing the dam but noting that the associated pipeline would cost at least US$400 million.
“The pipeline is the bigger project,” he said, calling for increased government funding to make the scheme viable.
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