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The project’s name was changed from Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) to National Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (NMZWP) when the Minister of Water Resources Management and Development, Mr Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, was appointed to Cabinet.

Observers said he campaigned for the change in Cabinet to hijack the project from the MZWT and score cheap political points for his party, the MDC-T.
Yesterday, Minister Sipepa Nkomo tried to make up for his party leader’s blunder when he celebrated Dr Dabengwa as a “hero of this country’’.
But that was a little too late as the Prime Minister’s gaffe when he spoke at a stakeholders’ conference hosted by Mr Sipepa Nkomo’s ministry on harnessing the Zambezi water for the development of the region at the Small City Hall had already drawn the ire of political leaders in the region.

Asked by a participant why the chairman of the MZWT, Dr Dabengwa, was not invited to the conference, Prime Minister Tsvangirai chose to be dramatic.
“The chairman . . . chairman of what? I don’t know what chairman. If there is a chairman of some other initiative, he should have been invited here. I’ll not answer for those that invited people and failed to invite the chairman,’’ he said.

His comments drew laughter from a section of his party’s supporters and shock from the majority of the people at the Small City Hall.
Observers were quick to point out that the Prime Minister was displaying political naivety and arrogance towards the region and its leadership.
When one of the participants asked why they had changed the name of the project, the Prime Minister chose to borrow lines from the English playwright and poet, William Shakespeare.
“What’s in a name?’’ he retorted.

One participant in the hall shouted back: “Asilifuni ibizo lenu leli (We don’t want this new name).’’
In the after lunch session, which the Prime Minister did not attend, a participant took Minister Sipepa Nkomo to task for failing to brief his bosses.
“It is so shameful that our PM comes here unbriefed. He doesn’t know the chairman of this project!’’ he said.
The minister, however, said the PM had been fully briefed.

“I can assure you my brother that the PM was properly briefed,’’ he said.
Asked for comment, the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU)’s spokesperson, Mr Methuseli Moyo, who “gate-crashed’’ into the conference, said the PM displayed shocking levels of ignorance and contempt.
“I think it was obvious from what he said that he is both ignorant and contemptuous. He is generally ignorant about Matabeleland and specifically ignorant about the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project.
“Secondly, he is contemptuous of the person of a hero of the calibre of Dr Dabengwa and other Matabeleland leaders who initiated the project and pressurised the Government to fund it. He doesn’t want to acknowledge the role played by our leaders through the Matabeleland Action Group,” he said.

Mr Moyo said it was shocking that people would call a meeting about the Zambezi water project and, “throughout the entire 6 hours ritually avoided mentioning names of Dr Dabengwa and other leaders.”
“I was really disappointed by PM Tsvangirai’s performance. To have a PM who sinks so low is pathetic, a PM who cannot acknowledge that there were other people before him. Dr Dabengwa, the late VP Joseph Msika, VP John Nkomo, Richard Ndlovu, Angeline Masuku, Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, the late Welshman Mabhena; these are the people that have carried the project and have made sure that it is a Government project.

“This thing (Zambezi water project) has always been a Government project, nothing has changed just that there are new characters running it,” he said.
In an interview with the Sunday News, Dr Dabengwa said he was shocked by PM Tsvangirai’s words.

“When Morgan (Tsvangirai) was sworn in as PM, I went and congratulated him. I told him about the project and gave him my card. He has it. I asked him that since he is now the PM; as the MZWT, we had a request. I asked that he helps us, MZWT, and our partners. I told him that we had applied, a long time ago, for a methane concession.
“He (PM Tsvangirai) asked about the project and I explained it to him. I told him that the dam would be important to our partners who had applied for the concession because it would be nearer to the dam. They intended building a thermal power station. I told him everything. He said he would help us and referred us to the Minister of Energy, who was Mudzuri then. Mudzuri called his permanent secretary and he confirmed that there is such an application.

“The PM knows all that and I was surprised to hear what he said,” he said.
Reacting to accusations of trying to sideline Dr Dabengwa and the MZWT, Minister Sipepa Nkomo, said he felt there was an attempt, especially in the media, to brew a fight between him and the ZAPU president.