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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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