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Zimbabweans Battle To Prevent New Cholera Outbreak
Workers trudge through foul-smelling mud in a trench seeping with clean drinking water and raw sewage in one of the Harare neighbourhoods hardest hit by last year’s cholera epidemic.
The repair work is a race against time to patch the city’s sewage system before the rainy season begins in November, when health workers fear the water-borne disease could erupt again.
The three-metre (10-foot) deep trench cuts through Usuf Austin’s driveway and runs the length of his block, forcing his family to leap across the hole to get into their house.
But he’s happy for the crew to replace the leaky pipes blamed for fueling the epidemic that killed more than 4,200 people and sickened nearly 100,000.
“The sewage was coming out day in and day out, 24 hours a day” when cholera first struck in August 2008, he said.
“This sewage water mixes with the rain water during the rainy season,” he added.
The epidemic erupted last year as post-election violence swept Zimbabwe, already crippled by a decade of economic decline blamed on controversial reforms by autocratic President Robert Mugabe.
The country’s collapsing public infrastructure added to chronically overburdened sewer systems and water shortages. This in turn gave free rein to the diarrhoeal disease, which is easily preventable with clean water and proper sewage but thrives in places without proper sanitation.
The crew on Austin’s road is one of dozens tearing up streets around the Zimbabwe capital, including much of the city centre, in a donor-funded drive to fix the worst of the sewer problems.
Raw sewage still trickles along street sides in working class neighbourhoods like this one, but the onset of rains could easily turn it into streams.
The work is gruelling under Zimbabwe’s tropical sun, as the crew use pick axes and shovels to dig the trenches by hand, without protective gloves or masks.
“We have to go to the houses to ask for gloves, even shovels,” said Titus Sibanda, 35, the crew’s foreman. “All the people on these streets, they help us.”
Zimbabwe declared an end to the cholera epidemic at the end of July, and only five cases have been reported since then, in a rural district where periodic outbreaks are common.
What distinguished last year was its epicentre in Harare, which accounted for most of the victims.
Residents of the capital had been used to reliable, clean drinking water and had never had to take cholera precautions.
But leaky pipes left raw sewage seeping into the water supply. Mounds of rubbish, accumulating by the day, have also become a common landmark on the outskirts of most poor suburbs as authorities lack fuel or spares to keep dump trucks on the road.
Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown last year left hospitals and clinics without money for basic medicines and supplies, while doctors and nurses went on strike to demand their wages.
The result was the worst cholera epidemic anywhere in the world in more than a decade.
Most of the response was led by aid agencies, who shipped in water treatment tablets and medicines, and set up emergency cholera clinics.
The UN Children’s Fund has warned that a new outbreak is “almost inevitable” when the rainy season begins in November, as an estimated six million people have little or no access to safe water and sanitation, the main driver of cholera.
“Unfortunately we do believe that cholera has become endemic within Zimbabwe,” UNICEF’s chief of health Mickey Chopra said recently.
“There’s not been enough time to repair that infrastructure, so we are preparing for a cholera outbreak in the rainy season.”
But Health Minister Henry Madzorera said Zimbabwe is better prepared this year. Doctors and nurses are back on the job, so clinics are running again. Education campaigns have highlighted the importance of boiling water, washing hands and other prevention measures.
“You’ll notice in Harare there is a lot of excavation happening. The water supply is going to improve,” he told AFP.
“We encourage people to take hygiene measures,” he said. “But the rainy season is coming, we may have a few problems.”
All the pipes that need replacing will never be fixed before the rains, the crew foreman in Highfields said it’s important for the public to see efforts are being made.
“People need to see things working day to day,” Sibanda said. “Harare is going to come back.”
The Nigeria Immigration Service has officially ended passport production at multiple centres, transitioning to a single, centralised system for the first time in 62 years.
Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed this yesterday while inspecting Nigeria’s new Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja.
He stated that since the establishment of NIS in 1963, Nigeria had never operated a central passport production centre, until now, marking a major reform milestone.
“The project is 100 per cent ready. Nigeria can now be more productive and efficient in delivering passport services,” Tunji-Ojo said.
He explained that old machines could only produce 250 to 300 passports daily, but the new system had a capacity of 4,500 to 5,000 passports every day.
“With this, NIS can now meet daily demands within just four to five hours of operation,” he added, describing it as a game-changer for passport processing in Nigeria.
“We promised two-week delivery, and we’re now pushing for one week.
“Automation and optimisation are crucial for keeping this promise to Nigerians,” the minister said.
He noted that centralisation, in line with global standards, would improve uniformity and enhance the overall integrity of Nigerian travel documents worldwide.
Tunji-Ojo described the development as a step toward bringing services closer to Nigerians while driving a culture of efficiency and total passport system reform.
He said the centralised production system aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda, boosting NIS capacity and changing the narrative for better service delivery.
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has disbursed N2.225 trillion as federation revenue for the month of August 2025, the highest ever allocation to the three tiers of government and other statutory recipients.
This marks the second consecutive month that FAAC disbursements have crossed the N2 trillion mark.
The revenue, shared at the August 2025 FAAC meeting in Abuja, was buoyed by increases in oil and gas royalty, value-added tax (VAT), and common external tariff (CET) levies, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting.
Out of the N2.225 trillion total distributable revenue, FAAC said N1,478.593 trillion came from statutory revenue, N672.903 billion from VAT, N32.338 billion from the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), and N41.284 billion from Exchange Difference.
The communiqué revealed that gross federation revenue for the month stood at N3.635 trillion. From this amount, N124.839 billion was deducted as cost of collection, while N1,285.845 trillion was set aside for transfers, interventions, refunds, and savings.
From the statutory revenue of N1.478 trillion, the Federal Government received N684.462 billion, State Governments received N347.168 billion, and Local Government Councils received N267.652 billion. A further N179.311 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) went to oil-producing states as derivation revenue.
From the distributable VAT revenue of N672.903 billion, the Federal Government received N100.935 billion, the states received N336.452 billion, while the local governments got N235.516 billion.
Of the N32.338 billion shared from EMTL, the Federal Government received N4.851 billion, the States received N16.169 billion, and the Local Governments received N11.318 billion.
From the N41.284 billion exchange difference, the Federal Government received N19.799 billion, the states received N10.042 billion, and the local governments received N7.742 billion, while N3.701 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared to the oil-producing states as derivation.
The Governing Council of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic, Bori, has decried the inadequate power supply and poor state of infrastructural facilities and equipment at the institution.
The Council also appealed to the government, including Non-Governmental Organisations, agencies, as well as well-meaning Rivers people to intervene to restore and sustain the laudable gesture, dreams and aspirations of the founding fathers of the polytechnic.
The Chairman of the newly inaugurated Council, Professor Friday B. Sigalo, made this appeal during a tour of facilities at the Polytechnic, recently.
Accompanied by members of the team, Prof Sigalo emphasised the position of technology, technical and vocational education in sustainable development.
He noted that with the prospects on ground, and the programmes and activities undertaken in the polytechnic, there is no doubt that the institution would add values to the educational system in our society and foster the desired development, if the existing challenges are jointly tackled.
This was contained in a statement signed by Deputy Registrar, Public Relations, Kenpoly, Innocent Ogbonda-Nwanwu, and made available to The Tide in Port Harcourt.
The chairman who restated the intention of his team of technocrats to ensure that KenPoly enjoys desirable face-lift, said the Council would deliver on its core mandates, accordingly.
Earlier, the Rector, KenPoly Engr. Dr. Ledum S. Gwarah, commended the appointment of Professor Friday B. Sigalo as Chairman of the KenPoly Governing Council.
He described him and his team as seasoned technocrats and expressed confidence in their ability to succeed.
The Rector pledged the management’s support to the Council to ensure that KenPoly resumes its rightful place in the comity of polytechnics in the country.
Facilities visited by the Governing Council include KenPoly workshops, laboratories, skills acquisition centre, library, hostels and medical centre.
Chinedu Wosu
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