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dam-l Zim Dam lies idle
>ZD35-MILLION DAM IN ZIM'S MATABELELAND SOUTH LYING IDLE
>BULAWAYO July 23 1998 Sapa
>
> Its contruction was controversial and so has become the use of its
> water.
>
> Mtshabezi Dam in Umzingwane district in Zimbabwe's drought-prone
> Matabeleland South province was completed in 1994 despite protests
> by local villagers.
>
> Four years later, the dam remains a white elephant as intended
> beneficiaries refuse to tap its water citing high tariffs, Ziana
> reports.
>
> Government spent Zim dollars 35 million building the dam, with a
> capacity of 52 million litres of water, to ease perennial water
> shortages in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city of one
> million people; and Gwanda Town with 20,000 people.
>
> The dam was also expected to have supported irrigation schemes and
> other water-based projects to generate income for villagers.
>
> "Government offered us water from Mtshabezi, but it will be unwise
> to fund the piping of that water...it will not be worth the money
> we will lose," said Bulawayo mayor Abel Siwela recently.
>
> "But if government lays the pipes for us, we will happily draw
> Mtshabezi water," he said.
>
> Gwanda Town chairman Esau Mzila told a public meeting in June that
> his council had not managed to draw water from the dam because it
> could not afford it.
>
> Matabeleland regional water engineer Allan Sibanda said it would
> cost more than Zd120 million to lay pipes to pump Mtshabezi water
> into Bulawayo's supply system through Umzingwane Dam, about 50km
> away.
>
> But government had allocated only Zd8 million for that purpose
> this year, said Sibanda.
>
> It will cost almost a similar amount of money to supply water to
> Gwanda Town.
>
> However, some observers perceive the city's refusal to draw water
> from Mtshabezi as a political statement by local politicians
> unhappy that government built the dam without seeking their views.
>
> Others charge that the construction of Mtshabezi was a ploy to
> divert attention from the planned Zd7 billion Matabeleland Zambezi
> Water Project (MZWP), billed as a permanent solution to Bulawayo's
> water woes.
>
> The project envisages drawing water from the Zambezi River near
> the northern resort town of Victoria Falls, moving it through a
> network of dams and irrigation schemes in Matabeleland North
> province to Bulawayo.
>
> "It is no secret that Bulawayo city council and its supporters
> feel that government built Mtshabezi in an endeavour to escape the
> more expensive but lasting solution of implementing the
> Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project," said one city councillor.
>
> Following a recent meeting, several Bulawayo councillors openly
> accused government of coming up with various dam schemes to delay
> and eventually abandon the MZWP.
>
> Other dam schemes the government is looking at developing are the
> proposed Gwayi/Umguza and Gwayi/Shangani dams as well as the
> Nyamandlovu Aquifer scheme.
>
> Meanwhile, subsistence farmers in the Madlabusuku and Mutimutema
> villages which surround Mtshabezi Dam are bitter.
>
> The villagers claim they agreed to the construction of Mtshabezi
> Dam after a promise by government that the dam would enable them
> to embark on commercial irrigation schemes.
>
> But after completion of the dam, they said, they were told that no
> such scheme could be sustained in the mountainous area.
>
> "There has not been any project that can benefit the people around
> the dam, but we are planning to introduce fishing and gardening
> soon," said an official with the Umzingwane Rural District
> Council.
>
> About 42 families had to be uprooted to make way for construction
> of the dam which swallowed 440ha of land and stretches more than
> 7km upstream.
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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