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George Maponga Masvingo Bureau
A $100 000 water treatment plant, which was established to cater for more than 3 000 Tokwe-Mukosi flood victims at a temporary holding camp in Chingwizi, is now lying idle. The villagers, who were initially relocated to Chingwizi following threats of flooding on the Tokwe-Mukosi basin, have since been moved to plots at Nuanetsi Ranch in Mwenezi.

The mothballed water treatment plant, with a capacity to hold 95 cubic metres of water, was jointly built by the Masvingo-based Batanai HIV and Aids Services Organisation and Oxfam in June 2014. It was later handed over to Government. Mwenezi assistant district administrator Mr Martin Musakanda said the water treatment plant was idle as most of the beneficiaries have since been relocated.

“The village which is closest to the water treatment plant is about a kilometre away, while the farthest is almost 26 kilometres away, and we do not have capacity to convey the treated water to these villages because of the long distance,” he said. The relocated villagers are currently grappling with severe water shortages as most boreholes that were drilled at Nuanetsi, which is mostly affected by arid conditions, are either malfunctioning or not pumping water due to the depleted water table.

“At the moment, the water plant is idle because when it was built its main purposes was to supply clean water to the overcrowded holding camp, where it was conveyed through gravity and accessed by the flood victims through taps that were dotted around the camp,” he said. Mr Musakanda said the water plant, which is now in the hands of the District Development Fund and Zinwa, is currently under care and mainten- ance.

“It was fuelled by diesel to pump water that would be treated before being supplied to the flood victims at Chingwizi, but at the moment we do now know how we are going to use it for because it can no longer supply water to the relocated families.”’

Hundreds of relocated villagers at Nuanetsi were now resorting to fetching water from canals that irrigate sugarcane at Triangle and at the adjacent Mupapa plantations, raising the spectre of an outbreak of water-borne diseases. The villagers have since appealed to Government and NGOs to establish a new and bigger water plant to end perennial water woes at Nuanetsi. The Chingwizi water treatment plant drew water from a Triangle overnight storage dam. The water was conveyed by a seven kilometre pipeline for treatment before supplying the flood victims.