08 December 2021
Shamila N Mdlongwa
The Gwayi-Shangani dam project was first mooted in 1912, a century ago, but was rejected by the then Administrator of Southern Rhodesia stating it was far beyond the country’s means.
Years later after multiple rejections from government officials like Prime Minister Godfrey Huggins, Prime Minister Edgar Whitehead (1950s), Sir Roy Welensky and the Independent Zimbabwe government (1984), local citizens then established the Matebeleland-Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) a committee that would raise funds for the project.
In 1980 the committee’s dissolution was enforced and three years later a Swedish company, after assessing the dams surrounding Bulawayo, concluded that a Gwayi-Shangani confluence needed to be built and because of such the project was stopped by the government stating the same reasons given years ago.
Years later we were to see the government reviving the project and pumping funds into it but still up to date the dam is not pumping any water.
The second republic under President, Emmerson Dambuzo Mnangagwa promises to finish this project which began ages ago but will it be able to because already the projects completion under his leadership has been postponed a couple of times and we wait to see if it will be complete by next year December 2022.
“Bulawayo’s water challenges will be over by this time next year,” said Mnangagwa.
He was speaking at a rally held at Barbourfields Stadium after he had launched a cleanup campaign in Mzilikazi suburb.
Meanwhile, an outbreak of diarrhoea was witnessed in Tshabalala Extension which could have been a result of the 72hour water rationing and poor water sanitation.
In 2019 over 20 people, elderly and children, lost their lives in Luveve after they consumed contaminated water.
Years back, ‘a male Activist from Bulawayo, Arnold Payne pushed a 210 litre-drum on a wheelbarrow from Victoria Falls to Bulawayo then to Gwanda in 1992, to prove that if one person could bring water from the Zambezi River to the cities, then the government and other stakeholders could easily accomplish a similar larger task.’
Payne, who was involved in various water projects in Bulawayo, later proceeded with the empty wheel barrow to Harare to raise the same awareness in parliament.
Thus if Payne could do it alone what’s taking the government so much time to do it?
Zim GBC news