The Sunday News
Fairness Moyana, Hwange Correspondent
THE Government has set aside $80 million for the construction and rehabilitation of dams and weirs as part of efforts to prepare for natural disasters such as droughts and floods through effective harnessing of water for consumption and irrigation.
The development comes at a time when concerns have been raised that more than 180 dams are in danger of collapsing due to neglect while others have their walls threatened by floods. Minister of Environment, Water and Climate, Cde Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri told Sunday News, in an interview on the sidelines of a trainee ranger pass-out parade recently at Hwange National Park Main camp, that government was seized with improving the state of the country’s dams.
“In our 100 days target we are looking at providing water. We have been criticised over the years for not being prepared to deal with disasters such as droughts and floods. Last year we had challenges where we lost lives and property because we were not maintaining our dams so this year we requested for funding from the Ministry of Finance and they allocated us $80 million for dam construction and repair. We have around 180 dams that are threatening to burst and it’s those that we are targeting now,” said Muchinguri-Kashiri.
She said her ministry was also targeting the construction of weirs as it intensified its preparations for any impending drought by harnessing water from perennial rivers.
“The second one is that we want weirs to be constructed and for that we have set aside $3m towards the purchases of cement but communities will have to come in with their labour and other local resources such as stones and river sand. This will enable us to start harnessing water on all perennial rivers in preparation for any droughts that may come.”
Minister Muchinguri-Kashiri said in order to ensure that certain identified areas such as Binga with water tables reaching depths of up to 150 metres access water, Government had purchased rigs able to drill up to such depths.
She said in each province every constituency would have four boreholes drilled while solar panels and reservoir tanks would be installed as part of adopting modern trends and creating resilience in communities.
Last year tropical cyclone rains wreaked havoc in Southern Africa resulting in rivers overflowing and dams bursting their walls.
