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Minister Chinamasa

Business Reporter
An inter-ministerial committee set up to oversee investments around the recently completed Tokwe Mukosi Dam is expected to complete land planning soon with Finance and Economic Development Minister Patrick Chinamasa saying Government would not accept chaotic invasion of State land around the dam.

Tokwe Mukosi Dam is the country’s largest inland water body and was completed last December. The dam has a capacity of 1,8 billion cubic metres. The idea around not only the irrigation plan but also the investment plan, is to monetise the capacity of the 1,8 billion cubic metre land holding.

Minister Chinamasa said the Tokwe Mukosi committee draws membership from Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate, Energy and Power Development, Ministry of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and the Ministry of Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development.

“They are already working on it and chaired by the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe,” said Minister Chinamasa. “We set up a committee chaired by IDBZ to put out an irrigation plan. I want to urge IDBZ chief executive, Thomas Zondo Sakala to speed the planning process.”

Minister Chinamasa said Government has no appetite for chaos around the dam and he blasted land barons who hold land for speculative purposes, mostly without meaningful production.

“We do not want any development around this dam which is not planned. We will not tolerate land barons around this dam. The land around this dam is State land.

“We are going to plan it properly so that any investment will be on a planned basis and not in a haphazard chaotic manner,” he said. Ensuring order around Tokwe Mukorsi is not an isolated measure because Government is also working at restoring order in urban and rural councils.

Besides opening 25 000ha to all year-round irrigation, Tokwe Mukosi Dam will also provide irrigation water to Lowveld cane plantations, with the country’s sugar output expected to increase by 15 percent.

A $400 million ethanol plant is also planned at the Nuanetsi Ranch in Mwenezi banking on water from the dam, while a mega-national park is set to be created in the dam’s immediate environments. In that regard, Government has put in place a template to be replicated in every rural and urban council when developing human settlements or commercial areas.

“We now have a template which we can apply in any part of the country. We have discussed it with Minister (of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing) Saviour Kasukuwere, IDBZ and the Urban Development Corporation.

“The process is such that if the development is in the urban area, Minister Kasukuwere will give us land, if it is in the rural area Rural Development, Preservation and Promotion of Culture and Heritage Minister Abednigo Ncube will give us land.

“We carve out that land either for the development of a growth point or rural service centre. We provide the funding through IDBZ while Udcorp will develop the land. We will equip Udcorp,” said Minister Chinamasa.

“This does not mean that the private sector contractors will not have a role. Udcorp cannot be everywhere but we want everyone to know that we now have a template through which we can develop nationally.”