Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights, Community Water Alliance and Harare Residents Trust have collectively condemned the government of Zimbabwe’s water privatization efforts and called o citizens to use their constitutional voice and power to reject this unjust government decision
Speaking during the CITE hosted X Space on Wednesday 09 May 2025, MIHR Director Khumbulani Maphosa; Community Water Alliance Director Hardlife Mudzingwa and Harare Resident Trust Director Precious Shumba collectively condemned water privatization as unjust and deserving the citizens’ contempt.
“We need to understand where this water privatization drive is coming from. It emanates from the National Water Policy which relegates councils into water service authorities and create space for water service providers. However, the Policy says this will be done subject to the amendments of the Urban Councils Act. Now that the Act has not been amended, this water privatization this is therefore unjust and illegal” reiterated Mr Mudzingwa from Community Water Alliance.
Speaking during the same X Space meeting, Mr Maphosa argued that privatization is a global failure and that is why more and more countries are re-municipalizing and questioned the rationale for Zimbabwe’s privatization agenda. “There is enough empirical evidence to show that privatization has failed to deliver public goods like water and more and more countries are re-municipalizing. The reason why Zimbabwe is deciding to go its own direction contrary to scientific proof boggles the mind. And what, makes it worse is the secretive nature of this agenda – why are they choosing to use unsolicited bids for a public good like water?” questioned Maphosa.
Maphosa further argued that there is ample proof that water privatization will drastically increase the cost of water to the end user who is already heavily taxed. He called on the government to devolve power (including fiscal power) to local authorities so that they are not failed to provide water to the residents. He also called on the government to utilize natural resource proceeds to fund water issues instead of overburdening the already impoverished consumer.
