Tugwi Mukosi fails to bring relief to dry Masvingo

Six years after its completion, the Tugwi Mukosi dam, the largest inland water reservoir in Zimbabwe, remains idle while drought continues to stalk Masvingo.

Even with an investment of US$300 million, the potential of Tugwi Mukosi dam to bring relief and support to the drought-affected area remains unfulfilled.

At the time of its construction, the Tugwi Mukosi dam was seen as a game-changer, with the potential to irrigate vast tracts of farmland, provide a source of hydroelectric power, and quench the thirst of a region plagued by droughts.

Yet, years on, the dam’s promise remains unfulfilled.

climate change intensifies and rainfall patterns become increasingly unpredictable, Zimbabwe’s water security has never been more pressing.

During the commissioning of the Tugwi Mukosi dam on May 18, 2017, the late former president, Robert Mugabe, claimed that it would solve Masvingo’s food shortages.

However, despite Mugabe’s promises, his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa has failed to deliver on his pledge to provide irrigation water for sugarcane plantations belonging to internally displaced persons (iDPs).

“We want villagers displaced by the dam construction to benefit from the water, so we will create irrigation schemes where they will grow sugarcane,” Mnangagwa told delegates in June 2018 at a campaign rally in Masvingo.

At the time, Mnangagwa attributed the delay in providing irrigation water for resettled villagers to the absence of a comprehensive Tugwi Mukosi master plan.

Despite the master plan being designed to assign land use in and around the dam area, including an irrigation master-plan downstream where the villagers have been resettled, the promises made by Mnangagwa six years ago remain unfulfilled, leaving the villagers dissatisfied and frustrated.

Billy Rautenbach proposed an ethanol plant in Nuanetsi Ranch that could have created jobs for locals and downstream industries.

However, political rivalries within Zanu PF led to the project’s failure, and it was later relocated to Chisumbanje in Manicaland.

in addition, plans to establish a conservancy and animal park near the dam are yet to materialise, despite being announced.

After several years of delays, the Zimbabwean government finally gazetted the Tugwi Mukosi master plan on June 4, 2021, following its approval by the cabinet in February of the same year.

The plan aims to allocate land use in and around the dam area, facilitate the development of downstream industries, and generate job opportunities.

However, the prolonged delay has caused dissatisfaction among the affected parties.

Fungai Marebe, one of the villagers displaced to pave way for the dam construction, remains skeptical despite the government’s recent approval of the master plan. He cites a history of unfulfilled promises.

Less than 70 kilometres downstream in Chingwizi settlement, where iDPs were relocated following the floods that caused the partial breach of the dam wall in the expansive Nuanetsi Ranch in 2014, Marebe’s reality paints a different picture of unfulfilled promises and continued poverty.

Mavis Tsikisai, another flood survivor, says she and her fellow villagers in the Chingwizi settlement are forced to drink untreated water from the Runde River.

This river was previously only used for cattle grazing on the Nuanetsi Ranch.

“Of course, we have a few boreholes and walk four kilometers. But nobody drinks water from boreholes as it is salty.

“There is a water point where water is pumped into a cattle pond. That is the water we drink after boiling.

“it is really surprising that we are experiencing shortages of portable water when there is plenty of unused water in the dam downstream.

“We were promised benefits from the dam, but nothing has ever happened,” she told The Republic.

Currently, less than a quarter of the dam’s water is used to irrigate sugarcane plantations in the Lowveld.

The fishing cooperatives, who have seeded fish in the dam, are the other notable beneficiaries.

Farai Mhike, a resident of Tsviyo village, laments that the region, which falls under natural region four, is not suitable for rain-fed crop production, leaving them vulnerable to food shortages.

“it was not by mistake that this place we are settled used to be a cattle ranch,” Mhike said.

“That is why there is a conservancy owned by Rautenbach. We try to grow crops, but it’s useless.”

“We are settled on one hectare plots despite promises that we will be given more land (five hectare plots each) which will be under irrigation for us to be sugarcane growers, but that remains a pipe dream.”

Mhike says some individuals who were relocated with them from the flooded areas around the dam have begun to return to their previous homes.

However, some of them have persevered with the expectation that the government will eventually recognize and compensate them.

The World Food Programme’s (WFP) most recent Food Security and Markets Monitoring report estimates that as of early January 2023, 5.2 million individuals had inadequate food intake, while 8 million people were forced to resort to “crisis and above” measures to cope with food scarcity.

The 2023 Zimbabwe Appeal: Humanitarian Action for Children report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef ) indicates that this year, three million Zimbabweans, including two million children, urgently need humanitarian aid throughout the country.

The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZimVac) released its 2022 Rural Livelihoods Assessment Report in August of the previous year, which projected that 38% of rural households are food insecure, a rise from 27% reported in 2021.

Political analyst Vivid Gwede believes that constructing the dam before implementing the masterplan is equivalent to reversing the natural order of events.

“The dam which was built decades after it was conceived risks remaining a white elephant if a clear roadmap for its utilization is not put in place.”

When asked for comment, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare deputy minister Lovemore Matuke told The Republic that the government began providing food handouts to flood survivors in August of last year.

However, he deferred other questions to Masvingo Provincial Affairs minister Ezra Chadzamira.

Chadzamira was unable to provide information on when the dam would be operational or when the development of irrigation plots for iDPs would commence.