The Sunday News
BY the time the morning dew falls under the rising sun in Chivi District in Masvingo, Mrs Galdencia Nyikadzino is already two hours old in her groundnut field.
She is busy harvesting groundnuts from her fields in Mhokore village, a few kilometres downstream of the Zimbabwe’s largest inland dam -Tokwe- Mukosi.
“Things are shaping up,” she said in relation to an anticipated better yield from her field. “There is no drought this year, never! Look, I think you can see for yourself, most of the fields have good crop except a few farmers who planted late and whose crops were affected by the rains.”
Although this year, Mrs Nyikadzino and thousands other villagers in Chivi are looking forward to the bumper harvest, they are not oblivious of the fact that this is just one of those rare years. Traditionally Chivi is among those areas in Masvingo Province that receive below average rainfall resulting in crop failure and drought.
“Rarely do we receive such rain like this year. We hope that if the rains are not as good as this year in the coming years, then this dam will provide us water to ensure that we would not go hungry while we are living right under its belly.”
Mrs Nyikadzino’s sense of security is justified, considering that finally the country’s largest inland dam has been completed.
Her sense of belief and anticipation is evident in the whole community of Chivi and Masvingo in general as the province foresees its future revolutionlised once the 1,8 billion cubic metre water body starts emptying its contents to start nourishing the relatively dry province.
“We are like a family anticipating the coming in of a new baby. Only that this time the baby is more like the prince,” chipped in Mr Henry Tipedze, another villager from the same area.
The dam, according to officials, will be commissioned either next month or in May, marking the official completion of construction and and use of the water. Zinwa Tokwe-Mukosi resident engineer Paul Dengu said although the dam was constructed with irrigation of the sugar plantations and other agriculture-related projects especially in the Lowveld in mind, it was so strategic that it can become the nerve centre of many other economic activities that will transform the economy in general.
“Ours is to provide a dam and that is what we have done. What is left is for the country to make use of the facility,” said Engineer Dengu challenging the country to start viewing Tokwe-Mukosi as one place that can actually become the epicentre of Zimbabwe’s economic recovery.
“As of today, (last Wednesday) we have 1 165 billion cubic metres of water in the dam. That translate to about 64,4 percent, we think it will go to about 70 percent because we still have some three to four weeks of water coming in.”
Already these are millions of gallons of water enough to ignite the economic revolution.
“On the irrigation side, we are in the process of making agreements with farmers so that we can see how much we can add on to their existing allocations with the available water in the dam. Because now they have some allocations based on the dam they already have.”
But this dam can not be about irrigation only. Zinwa, as the custodians of the dam, is already coming up with a master plan which will see a number of projects taking off in line with the new thrust that the country is soon to embark on Command Economy-an upgraded version of the successful Command Agriculture.
The Government has announced that it is now going to apply the Command Agriculture concept to other various sectors of the economy to speedy up the growth of economy. Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa who has been leading President Mugabe’ Command Agriculture initiative, told farmers in Maphisa in Matabeleland South recently that Government was moving into Command Economy which will be basically a duplication of the command agriculture initiative to all the other sectors.
“We are going to come up with a master plan for the whole dam usage. Some of our funders have already been here to do the general direction of the plan. They will obviously hire extra consultants to come up with a working plan which will be submitted to Government for approval,” said Eng Dengu, partially pre-empting the massive plans that will come from the dam.
Although the masterplan is still going through the mill, pointers are already there that the dam will be more than just the harvesting of the precious liquid. Just its structure and how it was built will be both an engineering marvel and a tourist attraction for many generations.
The dam was built at the confluence two of Masvingo’s major rivers -Tokwe and Mukosi. The rivers converge between Nyuni and Chidzidzi mountains and the dam wall was built by simply sealing off the gorge that was formed between the two mountains.
“We simply lifted another mountain to close the gorge and make it our dam wall. We had to blast another mountain which was downstream and carried the rock boulders to build the wall. This is the first of its kind in Zimbabwe,” explained Eng Dengu.
In short, Tokwe-Mukosi is a a modern version of Great Zimbabwe. The dam wall comprises rock fills laid down on top of each other without mortar or cement to hold them. The rock fill goes up to 90 metres, taller than most tall buildings in the country and just 10 metres shy of matching the National Railways Building headquarters in Bulawayo.
“What we just did was to lift another mountain and place it on between these two others. The contractor ((Salini Impregilo) is the same company that built Kariba Dam and so this is just some sort of an improved version of Kariba Dam but built with rock fill.”
On the inside, the company just laid impervious concrete face, about 40 centimetres thick, to hold up the water. Viewing points of the dam are already under construction. The tourism aspect that the dam won’t be centred on viewing the majestic structure only.
Plans are already under way to construct one of the largest national parks around the dam as the animals will obviously come to quench their thirst bringing them close to the eyes of animal lovers. So far the water in the dam has covered 7 500 hectares of land out of the more than 9 000 anticipated when the dam is filled up, but this is enough to run many economic activities like boating and more importantly fishing. As the dam is filling, it has also surrounded three others upstream.
“It means we now have three islands in the dam. Well I cannot say much but in other countries these become prime expensive land where those with money can develop houses or other related business on the islands,” added Eng Dengu.
The top of the two mountains that form part of the dam wall also stand as probably among the world’s most ideal places to develop facilities like hotels and related businesses such as casinos. Such structures will not only provide pleasure in terms of accommodation and gaming but will also allow visitors the change to enjoy themselves while watching the water and feeling the cool breeze from the dam. In fact there are many water related projects that are there taking.
Chivi Ward 28 Councillor Samson Mutsamba, whose jurisdiction covers the dam area, said there was hope from locals that the structure will not only transform their lives around agriculture but around many other economic activities.
“Most of us are villagers and maybe they might not have money to do big projects but at least we hope we are going to benefit from this dam. At least if we can get water to drink and allowed to irrigate our crops that will be better,” he said at his homestead at Gororo, just five kilometres from the dam.
Clr Mutsamba said in addition, his people have told him to make sure that they benefit from employment opportunities that will be created by the various opportunities at the dam.
“Our people must get first priority in terms of employment when these projects take off. This way they can feel a sense of belonging. They also need to be accorded special permits to at least fish from the dam.”
Such are the expectations of people in Chivi but as Mrs Nyikadzino also ponders, she hopes such dreams will not evaporate like the morning dew that brought her shivers on her way to the field but had disappeared soon as the sun rose above the mountains.
“The biggest problem is that as an area develops, it is quickly taken over by outsiders and there are whispers that we might be relocated. We hope this is not true,” she said.
Her hope and that of many is to see all the potential projects coming to life and ensure that the dam project which was first mooted in 1955 finally unleashes its potential for the good of the economy albeit 62 years later.
