Chitungwiza- In the crowded suburbs of St Mary’s, the stench is more than an inconvenience; it is a daily testament to a system in collapse.

Raw sewage bubbles from blocked pipes, snaking through dirty paths and pooling near homes, shopping centres and school entrances, a visible symbol of the decay that has become normal life. For the residents here, and for their representative in Parliament, Brighton Mazhindu, patience has run out.

This week, Mazhindu took the frustrations of his constituents from the broken streets of Chitungwiza to the national stage, directly challenging the government in Parliament to provide answers for chronic crises in sewer management, a housing scheme that has become a ghost of a promise, and recurrent flooding that leaves families vulnerable.

“We cannot keep accepting explanations while our people live in these conditions,” Mazhindu said in an interview following the tense parliamentary session. “There is a gap between what is promised and what is delivered, and in that gap, people are suffering.”

The Perennial Stench of Neglect

For Chitungwiza residents, their frustrations over the crisis and potential health hazards due to the town’s persistent sewage crises, with raw effluent frequently flooding homes and streets due to an aging and overwhelmed sewer system have become the norm without any solution.

The situation has created a “ticking health time bomb,” exposing the community to waterborne diseases like typhoid and cholera . One resident, Lovelin Chapfika, recounted how her family was hospitalized with typhoid after sewage flooded their house .

The core of the problem lies in infrastructure that is over 50 years old, originally designed for a population a third of Chitungwiza’s current estimated 500,000 residents . This has led to perennial blockages and overspills, a situation often worsened by a lack of consistent running water needed to flush the system .

Authorities have acknowledged the crisis. Recent government initiatives include a US$2.2 million project to rehabilitate the Zengeza Outfall Sewer Line, which involves replacing old concrete pipes along 9.8 kilometers and is expected to benefit approximately 40,000 households in Zengeza and St Mary’s . This follows earlier interventions, such as a $1.087 million project by the African Development Bank’s ZimFund, which aimed to address sewage overspills and provide utility vehicles to deal with blockages .

Despite these planned projects, the daily reality on the ground remains dire, and residents continue to live in hope of a lasting solution to the sanitation nightmare .

The public health crisis posed by persistent sewer blockages in areas like Zengeza 1 and St Mary’s formed the core of Mazhindu’s grilling. He presented the issue not as a mere maintenance failure, but as an urgent threat to community well-being.

In response, the Deputy Minister of Local Government and Public Works, Benjamin Kabikira, acknowledged the crisis. He pointed to a cyclical problem: the sewer system fails because there is no consistent, reticulated water supply to flush it through. The government’s proposed solution involves elevating the Chitungwiza Council to a water authority to better manage supply, while pinning long-term hopes on the upcoming Kunzvi Dam project and potential public-private partnerships.

For residents like Maria Chikwava, a 65-year-old from Zengeza, the plans sound like a distant echo. “They have been talking about these dams and partnerships for years,” she says, shaking her head as she navigates a narrow plank across a stream of effluent. “We need the pipes fixed now. Our children are getting sick. What good is a plan for 2030 when we are living in this today?”

Lillian Chanzira from Zengeza struggles to take her son to school daily. ” I have no option. Sometimes raw sewage flows past their school gate and because he is a child, there are times when he falls into the pond and he comes home smelling like sewage.”

Added Chido Moyo whose daughter also learns at Zengeza 2 secondary school: “Sewage is a daily occurence and pupils struggle with flies while its stench is now a normal daily reality.”

Mazhindu’s scepticism mirrors this street-level despair. He questioned whether the council would succeed where past projects had failed, highlighting a deep-seated lack of faith in government follow-through.

The 17-Year-Old Ghost Estate

Perhaps the most poignant symbol of Chitungwiza’s broken promises is the Nyatsime Housing Scheme. In 2007, thousands of hopeful residents paid their hard-earned money to the Chitungwiza Municipality for residential stands. Seventeen years later, they are still waiting, their money and their dreams tied up in a legal and bureaucratic quagmire.

Deputy Minister Kabikira confirmed the land is within Chitungwiza’s jurisdiction but cited litigation from A2 farmers and an inactive joint committee with the Manyame Rural District Council as the primary setbacks. He stated the Ministry is “seized with the issue” and urged beneficiaries to approach both councils for verification—a directive Mazhindu fiercely contested.

“These people did not buy from Manyame; they bought from Chitungwiza,” Mazhindu argued. “To send them on a wild goose chase between two authorities is to add insult to injury. It is a failure of governance, and the beneficiaries are the ones paying the price.”

For Tafadzwa Moyo (46), who invested in a Nyatsime stand as a young man, the 17-year wait has been a lesson in deferred futures. “I planned to build a home, to start a family there,” he says. “Now, my children are almost grown, and we are still crammed in a rented room. That land is a ghost. It represents everything we were promised and nothing we received.”

Building on Riverbanks, Living on Hope

The third act in this trilogy of crises is the recurrent flooding in areas like Manyame Park, where desperate housing shortages have led to illegal settlements built perilously along the Manyame River. When the rains come, these homes are inundated, destroying property and risking lives.

Deputy Minister Kabikira stated that the council is prosecuting those involved in illegal developments and plans a “regularization program” to remove settlements from riverbanks.

Yet, for the families living there, this offers little solace. They are caught between the existential need for shelter and the government’s failure to provide affordable, safe housing. Eviction or prosecution is not a solution to their underlying predicament.

Chitungwiza Residents Association (Chitrest) director, Alice Kuvheya is on record attributing the sewer crisis to neglect and misplaced priorities by the city fathers.

Kuvheya says the town’s decades-old infrastructure is collapsing, leading to frequent sewer bursts that flood homes and streets with raw sewage. She warns that this crisis creates a ticking time bomb for outbreaks of deadly waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid, forcing families to live in utterly unsanitary conditions.

She lays the blame squarely on the Chitungwiza municipality, accusing it of failing to prioritize essential upgrades and misallocating funds while residents are deprived of the most basic service delivery.

The parliamentary session has ended, but the questions linger in the streets of Chitungwiza. Mazhindu’s demands have highlighted the deep chasm between government plans and grassroots reality. For the people of this city, life remains on hold—waiting for the sewage to be cleaned, for the floods to recede, and for a 17-year-old promise of a home to finally be kept.