A SENIOR government official has called for the timely release of funds to ensure Gwayi-Shangani Dam is completed at the end of the 2025 budget year.
Responding to questions from legislators in the National Assembly recently, Lands, Agriculture, Water, Fisheries and Rural Development deputy minister Vangelis Haritatos said the dam was 70,8% complete.
He said while the Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion ministry had allocated sufficient resources for the project’s completion, disbursement of the funds according to schedule was paramount.
“The Ministry of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion has allocated sufficient resources to complete the dam at the end of the 2025 budget year.
“We pray that the releases will be done on time. The Gwayi-Shangani Dam is budgeted for completion in the 2025 budget that was approved by this Parliament.
“What needs to be done is the releases have to be done on time. If the releases are not done on time, unfortunately, it is outside our purview. It is not what we can do. We can make promises. We want to keep to the timeline. If the money comes, we will do our best.”
He emphasised the need for funds to be released in time.
“The other impediment about this specific dam is that if we are only given, for example, two million dollars, this means no change at the Gwayi-Shangani Dam.
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“We require US$4 million for the dam to be raised another two metres; every two metres costs US$4 million. If you are given US$3,9 million, it still cannot be raised until we get the full US$4 million.
“Not part of it because of the type of dam that we are building. The releases cannot be in drip and drops. They have to be in multipliers of four million and above.”
On affected communities, Haritatos assured Parliament that lessons have been learnt from past dam construction projects where relocated communities did not fully benefit.
He said the government was prioritising the affected families to ensure they were allocated prime land and would become key beneficiaries of the anticipated irrigation developments.
This will be supported through their integration into the Rural Development 8.0 programme, including the establishment of village business units.
On completion, Lake Gwayi-Shangani will be the third largest in-land water reservoir in Zimbabwe.
It holds the hopes of millions of people in the country’s northwestern provinces, where rains have been a perennial problem, thereby inhibiting agricultural activity.
In the past decades, Matabeleland North has attracted serious investments into its rich coal reserves, which could stimulate the development of other industries.
Without reliable water, the region risks running into the same problems that have affected industrialisation in Bulawayo, where big investors relocated to regions with reliable water.
