By Savious Madanhire
The Ngezi Water Treatment Plant through Devolution Funds has undergone a significant transformation with equipment to provide cleaner water and boost public health in the city of Zvishavane.
Engineer Mageja said the Devolution Funds started in 2019 while trying to rehabilitate their filters based on the poor quality of water the plant used to produce.
“Through Devolution Funds, we managed to purchase a Filter media, nossils and soft starter for one of our play water pumps. We re-did the filters and waiting to do the second cycle of filter rehabilitation to maintain the quality of clear water to the city.”
“In terms of clean water supply to the town, we have improved as we have not yet encountered any problems or complaints since 2019. We were always in the news for water they termed “Khakhi” hence devolution funds helped clear our names,” he said.
However, the treatment plant uses a total of 7 tonnes of chemicals such as aluminum sulphate and chlorine gas per week.
plant has a water deficit as they pump 12 megaliters per day whereas the demand is around 25-30 mega liters hence the plant machines run 24|7 to try to meet the required target but rather impossible.
Moreover, Zvishavane population is +- 60 000 according to the 2022 census whereas in 2012 it was 35 000 hence the demand for houses in Zvishavane is very high with upcoming projects from developers such as Mabula with 10 000 stands, Zvishavane 8 000 stands and FBC with 1 985 stands.
The plant has plans to install one more clarifier and two more filter beds. After fitting those it expects to get 30-36 mega litres of treated water per day.
However, it also has plans to increase high-lift pumping to the ground reservoir and increase the capacity of the line that delivers water to the town.
“We increased raw water uptake looking at the existing apparatus and we introduced a small pump in 2024 which was able to give us a rate of between 23-24 megaliters per day but we can’t exceed beyond that, without expanding so our next phase is an expansion of raw water uptake, sedimentation and filtration,” Eng Mageja added.
In addition, Eng Mageja cited challenges the plant is encountering, “At the moment we are trying to increase uptake for raw water but the tepidity of the raw water is high at around 500 units due to the rains and also illicit mining activities along the river.”
“We also need an emergency storage facility, which we don’t have, normally we should have a two-day storage so that if we have challenges on the supply side, we can still supply water to our residents hence now it’s hand-to-mouth. Through vandalism 19% of water is lost through communities and illicit miners,” he said.
For the plant to operate, water is taken from Ngezi River hence through gravitational pull it is moved to the plant’s river catchment area where it is pumped to the main treatment plant which houses four clear water (high lift) and five low lift all functional.
The plant also received 6 dosing pumps from Mimosa Mining Company as part of their CSR.
Ngezi Water Treatment Plant was established in 1979 by Shabani Mine being used to supply water to the mine premises and later handed over to the Zvishavane Town Council.
In 2007 the water went to ZNWA for a year and returned to Zvishavne Town Council in 2008.
