(NEWZIMBABWE) Government takes over Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project

Government takes over Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project
by
04/12/2009 00:00:00

A CENTURY-OLD ambitious plan to tap water from the Zambezi River to ease intermittent water shortages in parched Matabeleland is finally getting government attention.

Water Resources Minister Samuel Sipepa Nkomo announced Thursday that Zimbabwe’s unity government formed in February was assuming charge of the project “in terms of both leadership and management”.



A trust set up by concerned leaders from the Matabeleland region who accused the previous Zanu PF government of lacking the political will to push through the US$500 million project will now delegate to the government.

Nkomo said: “The project has assumed the much-needed political will that was lacking all along.

“We are hopeful that this would remove the many bottlenecks the project encountered over the years.

"The decision means the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project effectively becomes a government project … It ceases to be a regional one, with government being the accountable authority.”

Nkomo set no timeline of how the cash-strapped government would manage the project, first mooted by white colonial settlers in 1912.

“Our biggest commitment from now onwards will be to mobilise resources both financial and technical for the implementation of the project including the completion of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam [the first of three phases],” Nkomo said.

The Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project, as it has come to be known, includes three phases -- Phase One: construction of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam, Phase Two: construction of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam to Bulawayo Pipeline and the final Phase Three which will see the construction of a pipeline from the Gwayi-Shangani Dam to the Zambezi River.

By the end, a 450km pipeline will supply water to Bulawayo and create a green belt on its path.

Construction of the Gwayi-Shangani Dam – expected to provide a reservoir for the project -- began in September 2004 but has been hampered by lack of funding.

Successive budgetary allocations for the project were either a drop in the ocean, or diverted by the Zanu PF government, fuelling perceptions in the region that Matabeleland was being “marginalised”.

Political leaders in the region say the unreliable water supply has forced many companies shun the area, or relocate to Harare.

Bulawayo, the largest metropolis in the region, has managed to supply water to its 1.5 million people with the help of five dams -- Lower Ncema, Umzingwane, Upper Ncema, Inyankuni and Insiza.

The city’s water problems were magnified in 1992 when Zimbabwe was hit by its worst drought ever. In the 13 years preceding the drought, the region had only twice received normal rainfall.