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After 18 long years marred by halting progress and flooding that displaced some 3,000 families in February 2014, construction of the country’s biggest inland dam should be complete by December.
Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam in Chivi District, will overtake Lake Mutirikwi, also in Masvingo Province as the nation’s largest inland water body, holding 1,8 billion cubic metres of it. By the onset of the rainy season this year, a total of $255 million would have been spent on the mega dam, marking the end of the building of an iconic piece of infrastructure destined to substantially transform the local and national economy.
Work, said the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri during a tour of the dam on Friday, must resume next month after the government raised $35 million that is needed to get the contractor, Salini Impregilio back on site and complete the job.
“We have managed to raise the $35 million that is required to complete this dam and the contractor has assured us of their readiness to start work as soon as possible because our target is to make sure that the rains that will fall this year will be captured after the completion of the dam. The contractor is busy bringing in their equipment, which they had removed together with their staff and they have told us that they will resume work at the beginning of next month such that by December this year, the project will be completed,” said Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri.
Wholly funded by the government, the enormous project is a shining example of what we can do as a country even in the context of the illegal economic sanctions that precipitated a drying up of support from abroad.
Yes we will be the first to acknowledge that it was a tortuous path, with the government failing to pay the contractor many times and the Italians stopping work. The last work stoppage was in December 2014. However, the final lap we are in now is one to savour.
As the minister said, the government will not wait until the completion of the project to start mapping the next course of action, a stage that is just as critical as the one that started in 1998, that of ensuring that the dam makes the positive contribution to the economy for which it was built.
She said she will soon meet her Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development counterpart, Joseph Made, to discuss how the water would be used for irrigation purposes.
Already, the government has estimated that Tokwe-Mukorsi will irrigate at least 25,000 hectares of land downstream. We expect communal irrigation schemes to be set up to benefit locals through boosting incomes and food security at village level and a further greening of the lowveld through increased sugarcane production at a more commercial scale. This will enhance Zimbabwe’s status as one of Africa’s largest sugarcane growing countries.
Harnessing the water for crop production will demand a lot of money too, though it is unlikely to be as much as the $255 million spent on building the lake.
Irrigation will be only one of the many uses of the dam.
We expect Tokwe-Mukorsi to stimulate the emergence of a fishing and fish processing industry. Again, we expect development in this respect to begin at a community level, villagers setting up fishing co-operatives, to a more commercial level where companies fish, process and market the resource on a bigger scale.
An approach that deliberately brings locals to benefit directly from the dam will always be sustainable. It raises local incomes, food security and nutrition, standards of living and reduces possible conflict arising from a local resource.
We foresee a vibrant tourism and hospitality industry coming up on the Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam and its shores. As more people use the dam for various purposes, there should be demand for accommodation and recreational facilities, and this way a tourism and hospitality sector rises. Many dams of the same size, even smaller size such as Lake Mutirikwi, have recreational parks where some wildlife is kept and tourists pay to view them. We expect as much for the country’s biggest inland dam.
There is potential for some water sports too at the reservoir.
A dam of this magnitude is able to sustain substantial power generation capability. Therefore, infrastructure to use its water for a hydro-power plant should be put in place as well.
As all these investments take place, jobs would be created. Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri said on Friday that as many as 500,000 job opportunities can be created directly or indirectly because of Tokwe-Mukorsi.
Indeed the dam has the potential to contribute to the economy in a big way if the government, investors and the general people work together to ensure that that happens and Tokwe-Mukorsi does not become a white elephant.
Online Reporter