Parliament’s Environment and Wildlife Portfolio Committee has called for sweeping reforms to water pollution laws, warning that rising contamination is endangering public health and stalling national development.
Addressing an Environment–Water Policy Dialogue organised by the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), Mutasa Central legislator Innocent Benza said the country’s water bodies were “under intense pressure” from untreated sewage, industrial waste and agricultural runoff.
“We have been reminded that Zimbabwe’s water resources are under intense pressure from untreated sewage, industrial effluent and agricultural runoff,” Benza said.
“This pollution threatens public health, undermines economic development and compromises our environmental heritage.”
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Benza also pressed for real-time monitoring by high-risk industries and urgent upgrades of ageing sewage systems by local authorities.
“It must therefore be made mandatory that industries and high-risk facilities adopt real-time monitoring systems, and that local authorities upgrade outdated sewage infrastructure, ring-fence revenue and comply fully with national effluent standards,” he said.
“As Parliament, through our oversight function, we have visited hotspot ‘time bombs’ in Harare and Chitungwiza, and we are seized with the matter.”
Water pollution in Zimbabwe is largely linked to industrial discharge, agricultural chemicals, raw sewage and mining operations, with major rivers and lakes increasingly affected.
In a post-dialogue communique, the Combined Harare Residents Association and its partners said evidence from the forum showed “serious damage to water sources caused by untreated sewage, industrial waste and poor refuse management,” warning it directly endangers public health and sustainable development.
CHRA said it remained “concerned by legislative gaps, fragmented institutional mandates, and weak enforcement mechanisms that have perpetuated a culture of impunity for polluters,” adding that residents were “worried over alarming levels of pollution within rivers, dams, lakes and underground water.”
The association called for harmonisation of the Water Act, ZINWA Act, Environmental Management Act and Urban Councils Act; the creation of a high-level inter-ministerial coordination mechanism; an independent wastewater regulator; urgent rehabilitation of Harare, Chitungwiza and Epworth’s water infrastructure; stronger trade waste by-laws; protection of whistle-blowers; and guaranteed public access to real-time water quality data.
