The Sunday News
Rutendo Nyeve, Sunday News Reporter
26-UMGUZA district villagers in Matabeleland North Province were handed over state of the art houses which were constructed under the Hwange Expansion Project Unit 7 and 8 Relocation Action Plan (RAP) at Hope Fountain on Thursday.
The 26 houses are part of the 72 houses that are being constructed under the Hwange unit 7 and 8 project with 12 homesteads already handed over in the same district in February last year.
Guest of honour at the handover ceremony, Minister of Energy and Power Development Cde Soda Zhemu said the development is in line with the Government’s thrust to improve the livelihoods of displaced project affected persons and the entire citizenry of the country.
“As Government, we have made sure that we adhere to the World Bank Performance standards that are to improve the livelihoods of displaced project affected persons. The standards state that the livelihoods and standards of living of displaced persons must be restored or improved from pre-displacement levels. In this regard, it is pleasing to note that the standards of living for affected persons in Matabeleland North have been improved from the pre-displacement, as shown by the structures built under the relocation plan.
“Given the foregoing, I am pleased to note that today, we have 26 families who will become new owners of state-of-the-art homesteads built under the Hwange unit 7 and 8 Expansion Project. This brings to 38 the total number of houses handed over to the project affected persons, following the initial hand over of 12 homesteads at Epping Forest in February 2022,” said Minister Zhemu.
Speaking at the same occasion, Zesa Executive Chairperson Sydney Gata represented by Acting Zimbabwe Power Company, managing director, Engineer Nobert Matarutse said they were grateful for the support that they received from the province, the community, the traditional chiefs, the parent ministry, the resident ministry and the government of Zimbabwe.
“We are in this endeavour constructing 72 complete homesteads with a kitchen, ablution facilities, domestic animal kraals, among other basic necessities in a rural home, along the 310 kilometres of our new power line corridor.
“The Relocation Action Plan was necessitated by the fact that we are building two new power station units, Unit 7 and Unit 8 under the Hwange Expansion Project. The project is aimed at reducing the power demand shortage by adding 600MW to the national grid bringing our national total installed capacity to 2900MW.
“The scope of the new units entailed construction of a new 310km 400KV power line that complies to the requirements of Southern African Power Pool (SAPP) grid code, a community to which we are a member of. As such, there was need to clear the corridor of the powerline creating a wayleave of 30m from the centre of the lone, on either side,” said Gata.
The project is constructing 29 houses at Mazwi, nine at Hopefountain, 10 at Heany Farm, three at Kloof Farm, four at Stevenson Farm, 11 at Epping Forest, one at Saw mills and five at Gwayi siding, Bambanani Village and Chezhou.
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