Zimbabweans use maize cobs as toilet paper

Zimbabweans use maize cobs as toilet paper - minister

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By Lebo Nkatazo

ZIMBABWE'S Water Minister Tuesday said poverty stricken Zimbabweans are increasingly resorting to using maize cobs and pieces of cloth in their toilets due to the increasing cost of tissues.

Water and Infrastructure Development Minister Munacho Mutezo, an engineer, said this before the parliamentary portfolio committee on local government chaired by Mazowe West Zanu PF MP Margaret Zinyemba.

The minister’s claim comes barely a year after another parliamentary committee on justice was told by prisoners during a tour of penitentiary institutions that they were using bible pages due to lack of toilet paper.

Mutezo was responding to questions from MPs on the government's plans to avert a developing water crisis in major towns, and constant breakdowns and blockages in sewage disposal facilities.

“We have maize cobs being used in toilets," Mutezo told MPs. "We have cloth being used in toilets. We have all sorts of objects being used in toilets. Let us use toilet paper; lets not use things that are not meant for the toilet. Let's not put things that cannot be digested by the (sewage) system."

Last year, prisoners told MPs that they were going for weeks without soap or toilet paper. Deprived of toilet paper, some inmates said they had resorted to using pages ripped from Bibles to wipe themselves clean.

MPs found that malnutrition and disease were widespread in the country's overcrowded jails, which were designed for 16,000 people but hold many more, sounding the alarm about deteriorating prison conditions amid Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980.

Water and power outages are common in Zimbabwe, and sanitation facilities are in urgent need of repair countrywide.

Mutezo said he would be visiting Bulawayo, where the local council said it would fight to the finish in opposing plans to transfer the city’s water management to the state-run Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa).

The visit is meant to explain to the people and residents of Bulawayo the wisdom in transferring the management of water, Mutezo added.

“We have helped the people of Bulawayo by sinking boreholes at Nyamandlovu aquifer. There is also the Mtshabezi and Gwayi – Shangani projects. It is only government which has the mandate and expertise needed for those projects,” said Mutezo.

In Harare, he said Zinwa had increased water distribution capacity from 350 mega liters to 650 mega liters.

“The reason why Zinwa took over is that government saw that there was a gap that local authorities were failing to close. Other local authorities were overcharging. It must be noted that even before the decision (to take over) was reached by cabinet, some towns were approaching us to take over the water management,” he said.

Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is blamed largely on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy, linked to years of drought and the seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks since 2000 under President Robert Mugabe.

Inflation has soared to 1,300 percent, the highest rate in the world. There are also acute shortages of hard currency, gasoline and other key imports.

President Mugabe now faces a wave of street protests and internal opposition within his ruling Zanu PF party.
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