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George Maponga in Masvingo
Government has roped in the Zimbabwe National Road Administration (ZINARA) in the upgrade of the road to the proposed Tugwi-Mukosi Dam harbour as part of a renewed drive to stimulate tourism at the country’s largest inland water body.

The road is currently in a very poor state posing a challenge to tourists intending to access the harbour for boat cruises.

There has been an ongoing push by Government to tap into low-hanging projects at Tugwi-Mukosi like boat cruises while waiting for the completion of the dam’s master plan that is still being developed.

The Great Zimbabwe University and Midlands State University have since been roped in to expedite crafting of the master plan which is expected to widen horizons for investment in various areas at Tugwi-Mukosi.

Minister of Transport and Infrastructural Development Joel Biggie Matiza on Monday said Zinara would provide funding for the Tugwi-Mukosi harbour road project.

“There is a new board at Zinara now and we are consulting them for funding to undertake the upgrade of the road to the Tugwi-Mukosi harbour. We expect to have all the finer details to deal by next week,” he said.

“I cannot disclose the total financial outlay for the harbour road project as that will be worked out once we have worked everything out with Zinara but the project is definitely going ahead as planned.”

He said he had asked Zinara to finance the road project during a recent visit to Tugwi-Mukosi by an Inter-Ministerial Committee tasked by Government to identify quick-win projects that could be rolled out at the reservoir ahead of the unveiling of the master plan.

Plans to upgrade the harbour road at the dam comes after Government completed the tarring of the 10km Tugwi-Mukosi access road that connects the dam from the Ngundu-Tanganda highway.

The state of the art access road was constructed by a Chinese firm, China International Water and Electric Co-operation (CIWEC) for US$7 million.

After the tarring of the access road, tourist arrivals spiked with approximately 30 000 visitors visiting the dam last year alone.

The harbour road is currently the missing link in the tourism equation at Tugwi-Mukosi and its upgrade is expected to further drive tourist arrivals to nearly 100 000 per annum as more visitors will be enticed by boat cruising services.

Tugwi-Mukosi is Zimbabwe’s largest inland dam with a 1,8 billion cubic metres of water capacity that can also irrigate more than 25 000hectares cementing Masvingo’s position as the country’s irrigation hub.

Plans are also afoot to build a 15 megawatt mini-hydro power plant and build hotels in the dam’s vicinity taking advantage of the area’s topography.