The Sunday News
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu, Features Correspondent
THE death of Dr Dumiso Dabengwa on May 23, 2019 deprived Matabeleland in particular of an individual who was passionate about the development of the region’s water resources.
Dr Dabengwa had for quite a number of years been the chairman of the Zambesi Water Project before the Government took it over in 2005. That project was originally mooted as long ago as 1912, but nothing was practically done about it until 1980 when Zimbabwe became independent.
In 1912 this country was called Southern Rhodesia and was administered by the British South Africa Company (BSAC) founded by Cecil John Rhodes in 1888. The BSAC administration was succeeded by what the British Government called an “internally self-governing” territory after an all-white referendum voted for that type of status instead of an option for the country to join the Union South Africa as a fifth province.
Rhodes died in 1902, some 10 years before the idea to pipe water from the Zambesi to Matabeleland was publicly suggested.
When the Zimbabwe Government took over the project, it renamed it the Zambesi National Water Project, and decided to modify its construction by building a dam at the confluence of the Gwayi and Shangani rivers. This is being carried out by a Chinese enterprise and will hopefully be completed after 10 years, all things being equal.
Cde Dabengwa would have been extremely happy to see the project finished and becoming functional. Since cruel fate untimeously grabbed him away to the inaccessible land of dark shadows, it is now up to us, the survivors, to put our heads together to get the Zambesi Water Project to its functional conclusion.
It is, however, a long term project and the shortest period it can take is obviously some 10 years. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s national economic view is on either short or medium term, two to six, or at most seven to eight years.
Matabeleland certainly qualifies for such projects. We do not have to emphasise that Matabeleland provinces receive the least amount of rain in Zimbabwe as that is a fact always highlighted by the Zimbabwe National Meteorological Service scientists.
Evaporation is highest in Matabeleland because of high temperatures and so is percolation due to the region’s Khalahari region sand and rocks.
The next province in terms of priority is arguably Masvingo, followed by the Midlands, and Manicaland. Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, and Mashonaland East usually (“usually” is not synonymous with “always”) receive adequate rains during the country’s traditional agricultural season.
Zimbabwe’s largest dams are presently in the Masvingo Province. But when severe droughts occur, the highest toll is always in Matabeleland, particularly Matabelaland South Province where there are bone dry areas such as Sun Yet Sen, Makorokoro, Beitbridge, Gwanda, Mambale, Bulilima, Mangwe, Insiza, Filabusi regions.
Matabeleland North Province is also known for aridity in areas such as Hwange — Deka, Lupane, Tsholotsho, the Pashu — Binga sector and Nkayi.
The currently much discussed “climate change” is really not a new phenomenon if we take into consideration that millions of years ago, most of the world was covered by ice, and that some regions that are now barren deserts were thick forests, including the Sahara, the world’s largest desert, we will better appreciate the need to collect and conserve water.
That can be done by inducing rain to fall by means of cloud-seeding, and by thereafter harvesting it as it falls into reservoirs from which it cannot either evaporate or percolate.
Water reclamation from the sea is successfully done by Libya whose desalination process is worth studying for it makes formerly salty water consumable and the salts usable in several ways. Some areas have highly salty underground water, some yield merely brackish water suitable for livestock but not for human beings.
Desalination could be of much help irrespective of the water’s salinity level. If an area’s subterranean water salinity level is high, and the salt is sodium chloride (common salt) desalination could become an industry producing salt as an export commodity and a substitute for the salt Zimbabwe presently imports from Botswana’s Makharikhari Salt Pans.
It is of great interest to Zimbabwe that the major river that empties into Makharikhari Salt Pans flows from Zimbabwe; it is the Nata (also called Manzamnyama).
Its tributaries, the Tekwane (formerly known as the Netru), and the Mayitembwe, which runs across the western region of the Hhingwe Communal Lands are in Matabeleland South’s Bulilima District. The Nata is also partially so but most of it serves as a southern boundary between Matabeleland South and Matabeleland North provinces.
The Zimbabwe nation could meaningfully remember Dr Dabengwa by embarking on the construction of regional water conservation and reticulation infrastructure. The initial stage would involve dam construction, well digging and borehole drilling, the second stage would be canal construction and laying of pipes that lead to strategically located tanks or reservoirs which could serve irrigation projects and residential centres.
Both Matabeleland North and South have rivers that seasonally turn into roaring torrents with many of them emptying themselves dry into either the Limpopo for those in Matabeleland South, or into the Zambesi for those in Matabeleland North.
So, when we talk about bringing water from the Zambezi to Matabeleland, we are, in fact, talking about bringing back some of the water that would have been carried to the Zambezi by some of our own regional rivers. Why not capture that water before it reaches the Zambezi, an international waterway effectively owned by Zambia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and, albeit to a less extent, also by Botswana?
If Botswana and Zambia were to launch similar projects above the Victoria Falls for their own respective national development, the Victoria Falls would cease to be one of the world’s wonders, and Zimbabwe’s tourist industry would collapse, never to rise again.
The possibility of that occurring later than sooner, say 200 years hence, as Botswana’s and Zambia’s populations increase will require the two countries to utilise more water for the production of additional food for themselves.
We have seen, or at least we have heard, how the Sudan vigorously protested against its neighbour’s, Ethiopia’s, wish to dam the Blue Nile, a tributary of the mighty Nile, that rises in Ethiopia’s western highlands, and meanders into the Sudan where it joins the white Nile at Khartoum.
Even Egypt protested because, it said, damming the Blue Nile would adversely affect its Aswan High Dam operations. Without looking into the rights or wrongs of the Ethiopian decision, all we need to bear in mind is that there are always unpredictable international security risks to rely on an international waterway for national needs such as water.
Developing one’s own water sources is undoubtedly better. Zimbabwe would be wisely advised to do so in spite of its current excellent relations with all its neighbours. The country’s two major threats to water conservation are evaporation and percolation. There is little we can do against evaporation except to build huge enclosed water reservoirs from which water can be drawn by gravitation, and the reservoirs are replenished whenever it is necessary.
Deep wells below the dam walls, but a fairly good distance from the walls, could be filled by some of the water being lost by the dam through percolation. The geological characteristics of the land determines the rate of percolation just as the atmospheric temperature determines the evaporation level.
Details such as these, including those concerning reticulation, can be supplied most readily by hydrologists. If the Government would like to enliven the national economy, it just has to prioritise water conservation and reticulation for the agricultural sector since that is Zimbabwe’s economic mainstay.
Dr Dabengwa would have most deeply wanted to see the worst threat to Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector, shortage of water, eliminated so that the thirstiest regions of the nation can have water for at least the people and their livestock. Now that there is devolution of power, development projects should start at village level, get higher to wards, then to districts, constituencies and ultimately provinces.
It is difficult to think on what priorities national development funds can be spent on other than on water conservation and reticulation, and at village level. That simply means that village heads (osobhuku) then at ward level (abalisa, headmen) then at district level (chiefs) must be actively involved. Councillors and MPs are supposed to be full-time people’s representatives, and should design well structured, properly researched development projects especially for necessities such as water, a national need for which Dr Dabengwa spent a great deal of his time trying to bring to the people.
ν Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired, Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email. [email protected]
