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Tokwe-Mukosi Dam

George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
Government has roped in the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe to identify bankable projects for the recently commissioned Tokwe-Mukosi Dam.

The identification of the projects at the dam will pave way for Government to start scouting for potential investors at at the $300 million water body, which has the potential to economically transform Masvingo province and Zimbabwe at large.

Government has also set up a Special Cabinet Committee to manage infrastructure development and land use pattern around the dam.

Masvingo provincial administrator Mr Fungai Mbetsa said IDBZ was heavily involved in Tokwe-Mukosi having also played a key role in raising funds to complete the dam that was commissioned by President Mugabe in May this year.

“Government is working closely with IDBZ, which has been tasked to identify bankable projects that are likely to attract the attention of potential investors so that Masvingo province and the nation at large start drawing benefits from the Tokwe-Mukosi Dam project,” he said.

“The IDBZ has been heavily involved in the Tokwe-Mukosi

project even before the dam’s completion and Government is leaving no stone unturned in the quest to make sure the nation draws maximum benefits from the water body.”

Mr Mbetsa said scouting of investors at Tokwe-Mukosi will intensify once the dam’s master plan is in place.

“The master plan that is there is an outdated one and has since been overtaken by events and we have a consultant who is currently on the ground crafting a new plan that will give Government direction on what needs to be done at Tokwe-Mukosi and surrounding areas,” he said.

The Masvingo provincial administrator said it was difficult to estimate the time required to craft the new Tokwe-Mukosi master plan.

He, however, said Government was keen on having the master plan in place.

“At the moment there is nothing much that is happening at Tokwe-Mukosi save to say that the dam’s water has already started flowing to irrigate sugar cane plantations in the Lowveld.

“Government’s priority, however, is to make sure all families displaced by the dam start benefiting from its water. We need to open new land for irrigation development using water from Tokwe-Mukosi,” Mr Mbetsa said.

Government recently announced that it would not brook haphazard and unplanned developments around Tokwe-Mukosi with the dam touted as the key to unlock massive investment opportunities to transform the semi-arid Masvingo province.

Tokwe-Mukosi has potential to irrigate more than 25 000 ha and is expected to transform arid parts of southern Chivi, Chiredzi, Mwenezi and Matibi 2 into perennial greenbelts.

The dam also has vast opportunities for tourism development with its scenic topography suitable for building hotels and casinos with tourists expected to flock to the dam to visit the planned national park in the Tokwe-Mukosi buffer zone.

Construction of a mini-hydro power plant at a cost of US$20 million is already underway at Tokwe-Mukosi and the power plant is expected to produce 15 megawatts that will be fed into the national grid.

Agro-processing companies are also expected to set up shop in southern Masvingo tapping on produce expected to come from Tokwe-Mukosi irrigation projects.

Experts in the Lowveld sugar industry estimate that aggregate sugar output in Zimbabwe will shoot by 15 percent thanks to Tokwe-Mukosi.

Plans are also afoot to build a US$400 million ethanol plant that will be fed by sugar cane irrigated by Tokwe-Mukosi water at Nuanetsi Ranch in Mwenezi.

The Tokwe-Mukosi Dam is touted as Government’s biggest investment in Masvingo province in post-independent Zimbabwe amid expectations that the project will engender massive socio-economic transformation in drought-prone Masvingo.