A City Thirsty for Change: How Smart Water Meters Could End Harare’s Night Queues

Philemon Jambaya

Nightfall in Harare’s high-density suburbs does not bring rest. In places like Budiriro and Glen View, sleep is often interrupted long before sunrise by a familiar sound  the dull scraping of empty 20-litre containers dragged across cracked pavements. For many women, the day begins not with calm or comfort, but with a tense race through darkness to reach a community borehole before the queues grow unbearable.

For years, Zimbabwean women have been forced into a role they never chose. The sight of a woman balancing a heavy plastic container on her head has become normalised, yet it reflects failure rather than resilience.

Grandmothers, mothers, and even schoolgirls routinely wake before dawn, exposing themselves to harassment, intimidation, and sometimes violence, simply to collect water for basic household use. At the boreholes, exhaustion mixes with frustration as long lines stretch around corners, while self-styled “water controllers” sometimes demand bribes or favours before allowing access.

This crisis cuts deeper than physical strain. Harare’s chronic water shortages have created emotional and psychological stress that weighs heavily on women. When taps run dry, families are forced into painful compromises between cleanliness and survival. The threat of diseases such as cholera and typhoid lingers constantly.

Many mothers speak of the shame of sending children to school without proper hygiene, while others endure persistent back pain from years of lifting and carrying heavy loads of water. Countless hours that could have gone to work, education, or rest have instead been spent in queues.

A long-awaited change, however, is beginning to take shape in these same communities. Acknowledging the failure of outdated water management systems, the City of Harare has entered into a partnership aimed at restoring reliability and dignity to household water access.

Central to this shift is the introduction of smart prepaid water meters, designed to bring accountability, fairness, and consistency to supply.

Helcraw Water (Pvt) Ltd stands at the centre of this transformation. Working alongside the City Council, the company is not only installing modern meters but also rehabilitating decades-old infrastructure.

Key to the project is the refurbishment of Morton Jaffray Water Works and the replacement of severely damaged pipelines that previously leaked vast amounts of treated water before it ever reached residents. With smart meters in place, residents are no longer billed on estimates for water that never flowed.

Community reaction has been cautiously hopeful. Gladys Mutasa of Warren Park says the idea of turning on a tap after years of queueing feels almost unreal, describing it as a burden finally lifted. In Hopley, Nyarai Mudavanhu, who lives with a disability, recalls how the journey to boreholes excluded her daily; she believes the new system restores a sense of dignity she had lost.

In Budiriro, Amai Chipo explains that no longer waking at 2:00 AM to secure water will allow her to rest, work better, and care more fully for her children. Mai Tineyi from Chitungwiza shares that prepaid water access gives her peace of mind as she looks after her bedridden mother-in-law without fear of sudden shortages.

Women4Water leader Caroline Mutimbanyoka notes that the partnership marks a critical step toward ending the cycle of water deprivation that has held women back economically and socially for generations.