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Abstract
The contemporary social and political struggles between the city of Bulawayo and the Zimbabwean state over the control of water are reminiscent of earlier contestations during the first three decades after Bulawayo's establishment in 1894. During that period, the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) was locked in conflict with the Bulawayo Waterworks Company (BWC), a private concern, which won rights from the British South Africa Company (BSAC) to supply water to the fledgling colonial city in 1895. Supported by the city's white ratepayers, the Bulawayo municipality was successful in taking over the city's water supply in 1924. This article examines the conflict between the BWC and the BCC. It emphasises that the BCC's municipal power over Bulawayo was predicated upon water control, among other things. The article argues that, with the current postcolonial state's attempts to seize the role of water supply from the BCC, and hand it over to ZINWA – a parastatal created in the wake of the 1998 Water Act – the control of water in Bulawayo has come full circle. It further contends that the intensity of the recent (2007) opposition to ZINWA's overtures in Bulawayo has its antecedents in the rejection of the BWC by the municipality in the formative years of Bulawayo. When the BCC and the Bulawayo residents invoked the history of the city's ownership and infrastructural development of its water resources a century later, they were referring to the days when the municipality of Bulawayo took over water provision from the BWC. This sense of ownership was rooted in the work of their forefathers who had built and invested in a formidable reticulation structure. This conflict exemplifies the centrality of water to municipal power in both the colonial and postcolonial periods.
Notes
1 A.Y. Kamete, ‘The Return of the Jettisoned: ZANU-PF's Crack at “Re-urbanising” Harare’, Journal of Southern African Studies [Hereafter JSAS], 32, 2 (June 2006), pp. 255–71.
*This article was first presented at The Power of Water: Landscape, Water and the State in Southern Africa: an Interdisciplinary Conference held at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, 28–29 March 2007. The article has benefited from comments made by conference participants, as well as the comments of the JSAS anonymous reviewers. I wish to express my sincere gratitude to all of them and also to Mrs Barbara Mahamba, a PhD candidate at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies, University of Oxford, for sharing with me her insights into the politics of water in her hometown of Bulawayo.
2 M. Gandy, ‘Rethinking Urban Metabolism: Water, Space and the Modern City’, City: Analysis of Urban Trends, Culture, Theory, Policy, Action, 8, 3 (December 2004), p. 367.
3 E. Swyngedouw, Social Power and the Urbanisation of Water: Flows of Water (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 45.
4 M. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1996).
5 Water ‘scarcity’ for Makokoba township was, until the 1970s, largely a colonial construction and practice designed to make conditions for Africans as rudimentary as possible to ensure that their stay in Bulawayo would not become permanent unless absolutely necessary. M. Musemwa, ‘A Tale of Two Cities: The Evolution of the City of Bulawayo and Makokoba Township under Conditions of Scarcity, 1894–1953’, South African Historical Journal, 55 (2006), pp. 186–209.
6 W.G. Wannell and L.L. Hindson, ‘The Hydrology of the Semi-Arid Regions of Rhodesia’, papers from the Symposium on Drought and Development, First Rhodesian Science Congress, The Association of Scientific Societies in Rhodesia (M.O. Collins, 1968), p. 83; E. Goetz, The Rainfall of Rhodesia: Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, 3, 3 (London, 1909), p. 44.
7 W. Crosley, ‘Rainfall and its Conservation’, Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, II (1901), p. 33.
8 Official Year Book of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, No. 1 (Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia, Art Printing and Publishing Works, 1924), p. 68.
9 L.H. Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia: Early Days to 1934 (London, Chatto and Windus, 1965), p. 120.
10 Official Year Book of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, p. 68.
11 H.A. Peel, ‘Central Bulawayo: An Urban Study in Functional Differentiation with Special Reference to the CBD and Transitional Zone’ (M.Sc. thesis, University of South Africa, 1970), p. 6.
12 S.P. Hyatt, The Old Transport Road (London, Andrew Melrose Ltd, 1914), p. 33.
13 Hyatt, The Old Transport Road, p. 33.
14 O. Ransford, Bulawayo: Historic Battleground of Rhodesia (Cape Town, Balkema, 1968), p. 77.
15 A.D. Jack, Bulawayo's Changing Skyline: 1893–1980 (Bulawayo, Books of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, 1979), p. 66.
16 Musemwa, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, p. 190.
17 The Bulawayo Chronicle Jubilee Supplement, 6 September 1940.
18 H.M. Hole, The Making of Rhodesia (London, Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1967), p. 339.
19 Official Year Book of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, 1 (1924) (Art Printing & Publishing Works, 1924), p. 68.
20 Sir Robert C. Tredgold, The Rhodesia That Was My Life (London, George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1968), p. 95.
21 The Rhodesia Weekly Review of Men, Mines, and Money, III, 95 (Bulawayo, 30 October 1895). For a detailed discussion on Rhodes's emphasis on promoting urban and suburban beauty in the town of Bulawayo, see Musemwa, ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, pp. 190–2; T. Ranger, ‘Towards an Environmental History of Southern African Cities: Bulawayo in the 1930s’ (unpublished paper, Zimbabwe, 1999).
22 A. Harrington, ‘Bulawayo and its Surroundings: The City of Lo Ben’, in H.G. Mundy (ed.), Rhodesia (Bulawayo, Rhodesian Printing and Publishing Company, 1925), p. 42.
23 The 1895 drought which Laburn calls the ‘Great Drought’ caused a major water shortage in Johannesburg such that water had to be delivered to higher parts of the town by mule-drawn carts R.J. Laburn, ‘An Historical Review of the Water Supply of the Witwatersrand’, First Lecture delivered to the Johannesburg Historical Society, 26 August 1970 (Johannesburg, Rand Water Board, 1970), p. 4.
24 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 18 January 1895.
25 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 18 January 1895
26 Swyngedouw, Social Power and the Urbanisation of Water, p. 35.
27 Official Year Book of the Colony of Southern Rhodesia, pp. 68–84.
28 R.W. Tomlinson and P. Wurzel, ‘Aspects of Site and Situation’, in G. Kay and M. Smout (eds), A Geographical Survey of the Capital of Rhodesia (London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977), p. 8.
29 Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, private companies for the provision of water were set up in London, and each one of them operated in their own region within the framework of a market economy. However, from about 1828 onwards, the quality of the water they supplied was the subject of all manner of disputes. See J. Goubert, The Conquest of Water: The Advent of Health in the Industrial Age (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1986), p. 172. In America, from 1799, European-born engineers included Benjamin Henry La Trobe who, with his son, directed the construction of a private waterworks in New Orleans. By the end of 1830, around 45 private waterworks were operational in America. See M.V. Melosi, The Sanitary City: Urban Infrastructure in America from Colonial Times to the Present (Baltimore, Maryland, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); and M. Rawson, ‘The Nature of Water: Reform and the Antebellum Crusade for Municipal Water in Boston’, Environmental History, 9, 3 (July 2004), pp. 411–35.
30 A. Turton, C. Schultz, H. Buckle, et al., ‘Gold, Scorched Earth and Water: The Hydropolitics of Johannesburg’, Water Resources Development, 22, 2 (June 2006), pp. 319–20; Laburn, ‘An Historical Review of the Water Supply of the Witwatersrand’, pp. 2–4; J.W. Tempelhoff, ‘Rand Water and the Transition to a Multiracial Democratic South Africa, 1989–94’, KLEIO: A Journal of Historical Studies from Africa, 36 (2004), p. 80.
31 Laburn, ‘An Historical Review of the Water Supply of the Witwatersrand’, p. 4.
32 This article focuses on water supply development in Bulawayo only. The study of electricity or energy supply by the Bulawayo Waterworks Company has been taken up in greater detail elsewhere, see: M. Chikowero, ‘Subalternating Currents: Electrification and Power Politics in Bulawayo, Colonial Zimbabwe, 1894–1939’, JSAS, 33, 2 (June 2007), pp. 287–306.
33 R. Hodder-Williams, White Farmers in Rhodesia, 1890–1965: A History of the Marandellas district (London, Macmillan, 1983), p. 76.
34 Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia, p. 162; See also the Dictionary of South African Biography, IV (South Africa, Butterworths and Co., 1981), p. 787.
35 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 18 May 1895.
36 See ‘Memorandum of Agreement made and entered into between the British South Africa Company and William Napier, Percy Vipont Weir and Charles Jefferson Clark in 1895’, inserted in The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 25 January 1895. Clearly, the contract makes no mention of covering African areas, and particularly Makokoba, the formal residential area for Africans during the period under discussion.
37 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 1 June 1895. One of the restrictions was that the BSAC cancelled the clause that gave the BWC the exclusive right to water, which left the Bulawayo Municipal Council with some rights to continue monitoring water provided from wells at least.
38 ‘Memorandum of Agreement made and entered into between the British South Africa Company and William Napier, Percy Vipont Weir and Charles Jefferson Clark in 1895’; see also Rhodesia, a journal published in London for circulation throughout Rhodesia and other parts of South Africa, 18 December 1897, p. 140.
39 ‘Memorandum of Agreement made and entered into between the British South Africa Company and William Napier, Percy Vipont Weir and Charles Jefferson Clark in 1895’; see also Rhodesia, a journal published in London for circulation throughout Rhodesia and other parts of South Africa, 18 December 1897, p. 140
40 Gann, A History of Southern Rhodesia, p. 162; I. Phimister, An Economic and Social History of Zimbabwe, 1890–1948 (London, Longman, 1988), pp. 8–9.
41 Swyngedouw, Social Power and the Urbanisation of Water, p. 1.
42 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 25 January 1895.
43 Rhodesia: A Journal Published in London for Circulation Throughout Rhodesia and other Parts of South Africa, 18 December 1897, p. 140.
44 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 1 June 1895.
45 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 1 June 1895
46 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 1 June 1895
47 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 1 June 1895
48 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 25 January, 1895.
49 The Rhodesia Weekly Review of Men, Mines, and Money, III, 63 (Bulawayo), 7 August 1895.
50 The Rhodesia Weekly Review of Men, Mines, and Money, III, 63 (Bulawayo), 7 August 1895
51 Rhodesia, 18 December 1897, p. 139.
52 Rhodesia, 18 December 1897, p. 140.
53 Rhodesia, 18 December 1897, p. 139.
54 Rhodesia, 18 December 1897, p. 140.
55 The Rhodesia Weekly Review of Men, Mines, and Money, 5, 159, 12 June 1897.
56 The Bulawayo Chronicle, 6 September 1940.
57 The Bulawayo Chronicle, 6 September 1940
58 H.V. Lock, ‘Land, Water and many Parks: All Facilities that Industry and Employees Could Want’, Focus on Bulawayo: Supplement to Rhodesian Property and Finance (October 1968), p. 13.
59 The Rhodesia Weekly Review of Men, Mines, and Money, 5, 159, 12 June 1897.
60 W.H. Wills and J. Hall (Junior) (eds), Bulawayo Up-to-Date: Being a General Sketch of Rhodesia (London, Simpkin Marshall, 1899), p. 97.
61 W.M. Crosely, ‘Tanks and Wells for Domestic Water Supply’, paper read at the Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, 2 (1901), p. 96.
62 Crosley, ‘Tanks and Wells for Domestic Water Supply’, p. 120.
63 Crosley, ‘Tanks and Wells for Domestic Water Supply’, p. 120.
64 Bulawayo Municipal Council Minutes (hereafter BMC Minutes). These minutes are located at the Bulawayo City Hall: BMC: Minutes of the Meeting of the Town Council of Bulawayo, 10 June 1901: See also Report of the Town Engineer contained in the Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1912.
65 BMC: Minutes of the Meeting of the Town Council of Bulawayo, 10 June 1901.
66 BMC: Report of the Town Superintendent to the Mayor contained in the Mayor's Minute: Mayoral Year ending 30 June 1911, p. 13.
67 BMC: Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1912.
68 BMC: Report of the Town Engineer inserted in the Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1912, p. 13.
69 BMC: Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1912, p. 7.
70 BMC: Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1913.
71 BMC: Mayor's Minute for the Year ended 30 June 1913.
72 D. Worster, Rivers of Empire: Water, Aridity, and the Growth of the American West (New York, Pantheon Books, 1985), pp. 19–20.
73 BMC Minutes: Minute of the Mayor for the Year Ended June 30th, 1912, p. 7; Minute of the Mayor for the Year Ended 30 June 1912, p. 5: Bulawayo Chronicle, 5 November 1915.
74 Bulawayo Chronicle, 18 July 1918.
75 C. Dixon, ‘Some Suggestions and Essential Details for Consideration in Connection with a Municipal Water Supply Scheme for Bulawayo’, Presidential Address, Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, 16, 1 (25 June 1917), p. 7.
76 C.H. Pead, ‘Town Water’, in Proceedings of the Rhodesia Scientific Association, 12, 2 (10 December 1912), p. 81.
77 Dixon, ‘Some suggestions and essential details for consideration in connection with a Municipal Water Supply Scheme for Bulawayo’, p. 6.
78 Bulawayo Chronicle, 5 August 1920.
79 Bulawayo Chronicle, 5 August 1920.
80 Bulawayo Chronicle, 5 August 1920.
81 BMC: Minute of the Mayor for the Year ended 30 June 1917; and Minute of the Mayor for the Year ended 30 June 1918.
82 Bulawayo Chronicle, 5 August 1920.
83 BMC: Minute of the Mayor, 1919, p. 25.
84 BMC: Report of the Medical Officer of Health in the Mayor's Minute for the Year Ended 30 June, 1922.
85 BMC Minutes: Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Year Ended 30 June 1922.
86 Bulawayo Chronicle, 28 December 1923.
87 Bulawayo Chronicle, 28 December 1923.
88 Ransford, Bulawayo: Historic Battleground of Rhodesia, p. 74.
89 The Matabele Times and Mining Journal, 18 May 1895.
90 Municipal Law, No. 32, 1924 in the Statute Law of Southern Rhodesia, 1 January–31 December 1924 (Salisbury, Government Printers, 1925), pp. 294–5.
91 For more on this idea, see Gandy, ‘Rethinking Urban Metabolism: Water, Space and the Modern City’, p. 367.
92 T. Ranger, ‘City versus State in Zimbabwe: Colonial Antecedents of the Current Crisis’, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 1, 2 (July 2007), pp. 161–92.
93 General Information about the City of Bulawayo, Town Clerk's Department, Municipal Offices, Bulawayo, (1 May 1975), p. 109.
94 BMC Minutes: Minute of Mayor, 30 July 1925, p. 19.
95 The Bulawayo Chronicle, 3 March 1924.
96 BMC: The Water Supply of Bulawayo, April 1968, p. 2.
97 The Bulawayo Chronicle, 11 September 1933; BMC Minutes: Minutes of Special Meeting of Council in connection with (1) Khami Waterworks – proposed extensions, and (2) Unemployment Relief Works – held on 11 September 1933.
98 E. Mufema, ‘Old Wine in New Bottles: Governance and Legislation of Water in Zimbabwe, 1980–2000s’ (unpublished conference paper, Edinburgh, 2007).
99 Ranger, City versus State, p. 187.
100 Mufema. ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, p. 16.
101 Mufema. ‘Old Wine in New Bottles’, p. 18.
102 Zimbabwe Independent, ‘Zinwa, Harare Headed for Clash over Water Assets’, 29 September–5 October 2006; The Herald (Business News), ‘Zinwa Out to Tame Harare's Water Woes’, 14 February 2007.
103 Mail and Guardian, ‘Zanu-PF Tries to Win Over Bulawayo’, 16–22 February 2007; Sunday News (Bulawayo), ‘ZINWA Takeover: Msika Speaks Out’, 11 March 2007.
104 The Insider, 12 March 2007.
105 Mail and Guardian, ‘Zanu-PF Tries to Win Over Bulawayo’, 16–22 February 2007.
106 The Standard, 6 February 2008.
107 Gandy, ‘Rethinking Urban Metabolism’, p. 372.
108 P. Bond and M. Manyanya, Zimbabwe's Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism, Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice (Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press, 2002), p. 174.
109 Ranger, City versus State, p. 163.