Loading Where Things Stand…
Plain status of the long-running situations Bulawayo keeps asking about — water shedding, ZESA load-shedding, Egodini, and the Gwayi-Shangani pipeline.
Loading the latest information…
Bulawayo lives with a handful of long-running situations that decide daily life — the water programme, the power picture, Egodini, the pipeline. This page keeps their current status in one place, in plain words, with dates.
72-hour weekly programme in force since 6 May 2026, confirmed unchanged on 23 July 2026.
Most of the city is cut for about 72 hours a week on rotating days published by council; suburbs on the Tuli reservoir system have had longer cuts (96–120 hours) while pumps are repaired. Council told councillors on 23 July 2026 that the programme stays as it is — not because the dams are low (they were about 65–66% full) but because only one of the two raw-water pumping lines was running, moving about 51 megalitres a day where the pair can move 105. Schedules also slip when power cuts hit the pumping stations. The 'Is the Water On?' page here has the neighbour board and council channels.
No scheduled load-shedding for roughly six months — ZESA said about 188 days, on 29 June 2026 — and the run held through July apart from the 6 July grid collapse.
ZESA credits Kariba South and new capacity for a long run without scheduled cuts, while cautioning that network faults still cause outages. One did on 6 July 2026: a technical failure on the Warren–Alaska 330 kV transmission line collapsed the national grid at about 18:24, and most bulk supply points were back by around 22:00. So if your power is off right now, it is most likely a fault, not shedding. Track and report faults through ZETDC's self-service portal (zums.zetdc.co.zw). ZESA has promised an end to load-shedding by December 2026, on the back of a claimed 1,365 MW of new capacity; residents have heard promises before.
Stalled since the 2016 award; council extended the developer's termination notice to 2 September 2026.
The Basch Street terminus ('Egodini') was awarded for a US$60 million redevelopment in 2016. Kombis were moved out years ago — scattering ranks across the city centre — and deadline after deadline has been missed, making 'Egodini' the city's shorthand for stalled promises. In May 2026 council said the developer, Terracotta Trading, had brought in a new investor connected to the Zimbabwe Mall development in Harare, and endorsed the project continuing under the revised consortium. Nothing on site has changed yet. The date to watch is 2 September 2026, when council's extended termination notice expires.
Dam wall about 80% complete (10 July 2026); the pipeline to Bulawayo about 16%, stalled since 2022 for funding.
The dam on the Gwayi River and its 252 km pipeline to Bulawayo are meant to end the city's structural water scarcity. First mooted in 1912 and under construction since 2004. The two halves are in very different places: a progress report dated 10 July 2026 put the dam wall at about 80% complete, while the pipeline that would actually bring the water here is about 16% built and has been largely stalled since 2022. The four outstanding packages are contracted at about US$554 million against a 2026 budget line of roughly US$11 million. When you read that the project is nearly finished, it is almost always the dam wall being described. The Dam Levels page here carries the fuller story.
2 September 2026
Egodini termination notice expires
Council's extended deadline for the stalled terminus developer.
November 2026 – February 2027
Gwayi-Shangani completion targets
State media has framed November 2026; the Ministry of Information said February 2027. Both describe the dam wall, not the pipeline that would bring water to Bulawayo — and both are targets, not promises.
December 2026
ZESA's promised end to load-shedding
The stated target for new generating capacity ending scheduled cuts for good.
2 September 2026
Egodini termination notice expires
Town Tools builds free, public tools for Bulawayo and towns around the world. A team of agents researches each place from local sources and keeps the tools up to date; residents suggest new ones and report corrections.