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George Maponga Features Writer
Tokwe-Mukosi Dam, being built along the borders of the perennially dry Chivi and Masvingo districts in Masvingo province, has earned notoriety after flooding in the basin led to large-scale evacuation of more than 3 000 families and nearly 20 000 livestock to safety.
The flooding was sparked by heavy rains in the dam’s catchment area, covering 7 200 square kilometres, igniting a humanitarian crisis as more than 20 villages were submerged together with property belonging to families in the province’s two remote districts.

Government declared a state of disaster at Tokwe-Mukosi as the flood waters also threatened to overrun the dam wall, risking lives of nearly 60 000 people in the basin and downstream areas.

The partial breaching of the dam wall forced Government to hastily embark on arguably the largest mass relocation exercise of people and livestock in post-independent Zimbabwe.

Government made an appeal for help, jolting donor organisations and regional countries to deploy the much needed assistance to save lives by relocating both humans and animals to Chingwizi holding camp in the Nuanetsi Ranch.

Flood victims had to endure nightmarish experiences as they battled to salvage a few of their belongings that survived the rampaging floods before eventually moving to safer ground.

The socio-economic and humanitarian toll that visited the families caused far reaching tremors throughout Zimbabwe, with Government still battling with the aftermath of the devastating floods.

The relocation of Tokwe-Mukosi families and their livestock and trying to restore their lives to the pre-flooding period by building new infrastructure such as schools,

clinics, roads and homes will cost an estimated US$150 million. Government is grappling with challenges created by the dam construction, not least the herculean task of meeting the food requirements of over 15 000 flood victims over the next 12 months while they slowly recover and rebuild their shattered lives.

Despite the widespread destruction of infrastructure and property caused by the floods, the dam project will bring massive economic benefits to Masvingo province, making the challenges created by the huge reservoir pale into insignificance.

The dam, being built at the confluence of Tokwe and Mukosi rivers, will stimulate large-scale socio-economic development whose effects are poised to transcend the borders of Masvingo province to cover the whole of Zimbabwe.

Being Zimbabwe’s largest inland water body and one and half times bigger than Lake Mutirikwi, Tokwe-Mukosi will reconfigure the economic face of Masvingo by turning the populous but impoverished province into a major player in sectors such as agriculture, tourism and energy.

Masvingo South legislator and Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi said the relocated families were standing on the threshold of agricultural history because of the vast irrigation opportunities to be created by the dam.

“The relocation of over 3 000 families from the Tokwe-Mukosi basin where they were practising subsistence farming on sandy soils is itself a milestone and a positive development because irrigation will change their lives for good.

“History has been made by the Zimbabwe Government through successfully resettling thousands of families to fertile lands that will soon turn into swathes of various crops under irrigation,” he said.

Once complete, Tokwe-Mukosi Dam, boasting a water holding capacity of 1,8 billion cubic metres, will have the potential to irrigate over 25 000 hectares depending on the method of irrigation.

Water from the gigantic dam will help create a greenbelt in the vast Nuanetsi Ranch and Matibi 2 communal lands, turning Masvingo into a food self-sufficient region.

Thousands of communal and smallholder farmers downstream will become major producers of cash crops such as sugar-cane, cotton and maize, making the Lowveld the nerve centre of the country’s agricultural revolution.

Agronomists have already estimated that sugar production in the Lowveld will increase by at least 15 percent in a development that will see Zimbabwe angle towards achieving the one million tonnes of sugar per annum target.

This will consolidate Zimbabwe’s position as a major sugar producer in the region while at the same time earning the country millions of United States dollars.

The concrete-faced, rock filled Tokwe-Mukosi Dam will also be a tourist attraction judging by its sheer size and architectural sophistry that blends well with the mountainous surroundings in Chivi, to create a once-in-a-life-time tourism spectacle whose impressions will stupefy many for generations to come.

Minister Mzembi said Masvingo will slowly gravitate towards becoming one of the biggest tourist destinations in Zimbabwe because of the tourism opportunities created by Tokwe-Mukosi Dam.

“Tokwe-Mukosi brings high prospects of a tourism boom in Chivi and Masvingo districts as there is potential to build hotels and other tourism facilities at the dam,” he said.

Chivi Rural District Council chairperson Mr Killer Zivhu said his council and that of Masvingo Rural District will soon meet to craft the Tokwe-Mukosi development master plan to determine the land use pattern in the area.

“We are inundated with inquiries daily from businesspeople who want to build hotels and other facilities such as casinos, taking advantage of the scenic topography at Tokwe-Mukosi Dam and as council we also want to make sure our local people benefit economically,” said Mr Zivhu.

A thriving fishery industry could also bring huge rewards for locals, most of whom are subsistence farmers choked by decades of food shortages and economic hardships caused by recurrent droughts.

Unemployment will also go down in Chivi where the majority of youths are jobless and survive on illicit activities such as selling fuel on the black market along the Masvingo-Beitbridge highway while the crime rate in the district will undoubtedly go down with more people in gainful employment.

Mr Zivhu also said benefits from the construction of Tokwe-Mukosi had already started trickling in with hundreds of people from the Gororo area in Chivi having secured employment with the Italian main contractor for the project, Salini Impregilio.

“The dam site is now a hive of activity everyday as villagers flock there in search of jobs while others go there to sell various wares to hundreds of people employed there,” said Mr Zivhu.

Minister of State for Provincial Affairs in Masvingo Cde Kudakwashe Bhasikiti said a new era will soon dawn for Tokwe-Mukosi families at Chingwizi as they will soon start benefiting from the dam’s water.

“The new home that Government is creating for flood victims in Mwenezi will forever change their lives with benefits of irrigation set to cascade down to posterity.

“Mwenezi is going to be a major irrigation hub benefiting from Tokwe-Mukosi Dam water. We are happy that irrigation infrastructure is already in place, making it easy for water to get to the new fields,” Minister Bhasikiti said.

With the Lovwled consolidating its position as a major agricultural hub in Masvingo because of Tokwe-Mukosi Dam, large-scale urbanisation is expected in the area with the likely effect to attract investment in Masvingo, Chiredzi, Triangle, Chivi, Ngundu, Rutenga and Mwenezi.

Such investment will halt the great trek to neighbouring South Africa that is threatening to negate the developmental strides made since independence.

Addressing Tokwe-Mukosi flood victims at Chingwizi holding camp recently, Vice President Joice Mujuru urged the Masvingo provincial leadership to start courting investors to invest in eco-friendly projects like ethanol production to benefit local communities in Mwenezi.

The Zimbabwe Bio-Energy, a consortium comprising a group of private investors and the Development Trust of Zimbabwe, responded by expressing readiness to set up Zimbabwe’s third ethanol plant at the Nuanetsi Ranch banking on sugar-cane produced using Tokwe-Mukosi Dam water.

The envisaged ethanol plant will be similar to the one at Chisumbanje in Manicaland and is projected to create 5 000 direct jobs and benefit thousands of communal farmers who will become cane out-growers.

Besides creating employment, the ethanol plant will also further strengthen Zimbabwe’s position as a major ethanol producer, earning the country millions of United States dollars while reducing the country’s fuel import bill.

The Tokwe-Mukosi Dam will also have the capacity to generate about 20 megawatts of electricity, making Masvingo self-sufficient as the power will be enough to light up the entire province.

With Masvingo already boasting the highest dam density in Zimbabwe, Tokwe-Mukosi will further increase the province’s general irrigation potential from the current 50 000 hectares to nearly 100 000 hectares making it the fulcrum of Zimbabwe’s push to stop over-reliance on rain-fed agriculture.

The dam construction that started in 1998 is due for completion in August this year and will cost US$155 million.

It will become an embodiment of the dexterity and vision of the post-independent Zimbabwean Government that went solo at the turn of the millennium and completed the project while hamstrung by illegal economic sanctions imposed by the West.

As Tokwe-Mukosi inches towards completion, it is mainly the victims of the dam’s floods at Chingwizi in Mwenezi, who will heave a sigh of relief, hoping its waters will sweep away their tears and propel them to prosperity.

 

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