By Tatenda Chitagu

“HERE in Masvingo, we have the Tugwi Mukosi Dam which will help our agriculture and tourism sector. We want villagers displaced by the dam construction to benefit from the water, so we will create irrigation schemes where they will grow sugarcane.”

That was President Emmerson Mnangagwa in June 2018 speaking at a campaign rally in Masvingo.

An unequivocal Mnangagwa told thousands of supporters that the masterplan for the huge dam was as good as done and what was left was for Zimbabwe to settle its bill to a South African firm it contracted to draw the masterplan.

After the 2018 elections, the late former Agriculture Minister Perence Shiri, who was the President’s point man, held countless tours at the dam and told stakeholders, government officials and the media that the dam’s masterplan was a done deal.

Shiri succumbed to COVID 19 and his successor, Anxious Masuka, also spoke about the existence of the Tugwi Mukosi masterplan.

“The Tugwi Mukosi masterplan is now 99,9 percent complete; the technical teams have completed their work and the working party on the project will be meeting next week after which the plan will be taken to cabinet for approval then implementation,” Masuka said on  June 27, 2021 at a tour of the dam.

Masuka said this after government, through the Minister of Local Government and Public Works, July Moyo, gazetted the Tugwi Mukosi masterplan on 4 June 2021 under statutory instrument 135 of 2021, creating a combination authority to oversee land use planning at the dam environs.

The committee comprises officials from Chivi and Masvingo RDC-under whose purview the dam falls-as well as others from the Parks and Wildlife Authority, Environmental Management Agency, Ministry of Lands, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and the Zimbabwe Council of Tourism.

Letting the cat out of the bag

However, an official from Chivi Rural District Council, said at a tour of the dam early this year that nothing was going on as the masterplan was yet to be completed.

“The buck stops with the completion of the masterplan. The combination authority is yet to sit ever since the masterplan was gazetted. There is no money, otherwise the masterplan could have been developed by now.

“The government wanted something cheap and did not want to fork out money for the masterplan, hence they turned to university students to do the masterplan. At the moment, I do not know the progress as the combination authority has not sat ever since it was constituted.

“We had suggested that as local authorities we can come up with a masterplan concept but we were told that there is no money so we just folded our hands. With the way things are going, it will take a while for the masterplan to be complete, just like it took five years ever since the dam was commissioned” said the official.

We sought an explanation from Local Government Minister, July Moyo, on why the masterplan-which is holding everything back-is taking long to complete. He was not picking his calls despite several attempts to get him to explain.

Masuka also did not pick calls to explain what happened to the remaining ‘0,1 percent’ of the Tugwi Mukosi dam masterplan.

Tugwi Mukosi – all smoke and mirrors

As President Mnangagwa is about to complete his term of office without fulfilling his promise to make provision for the irrigation scheme, ZimTracker has compiled and curated statements by several government officials about the masterplan made since 2017 for the record. The timeline below shows that it’s all smoke and mirrors as officials mislead the public on the status of a non-existent masterplan.

• July 19, 2017: Then Deputy Agriculture Minister Davis Marapira told state controlled Herald newspaper that a consultant was sent to Tugwi Mukosi to validate an existing irrigation masterplan which was ‘old’ as it was done ‘20 or so years ago’. Marapira said irrigation was to start soon once validation was done. 

• 27 October 2017-Dr Machivenyika Mapuranga, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructural development, says the dam masterplan, to be established at a cost of $20 million, has been submitted to cabinet for approval and review.

• 17 August 2018– Government says the Infrastructural Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ), appointed as a consultant to Tugwi Mukosi dam by government, was on the ground identifying 25 000 hectares of land for irrigation.

• 18 March 2019-Government says it is worried by delays done by South African consultant identified by the Infrastructure Development Bank of Zimbabwe (IDBZ) and it has now roped in two universities, Great Zimbabwe University and the Midlands State University to help in the crafting of the masterplan. The two institutions will work with the government’s Ministry of Local Government Public Works and National Housing’s Physical Planning Department.

• 08 Oct 2019-Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Ezra Chadzamira says the development master plan will be done by year end after a South African consultant was paid his oustanding dues for the work and is now working with university students from Great Zimbabwe University and the Mindlands State University.

• June 04, 2021-Government gazettes the Tugwi Mukosi masterplan which calls for setting up a committee from Chivi and Masvingo RDCs, as well as officials from Parks, tourism authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Environmental Mnanagement Authority and tourism council.

• 28 June 2021– Agriculture Minister Anxious Masuka said the masterplan is ‘99,9 percent complete’ and is set to be tabled before cabinet for approval.

• 13 Aug 2021– Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister Ezra Chadzamira says work on masterplan is ‘concluded’ and a new city is set to emerge around the dam.

• 01 Feb 2022-Local authorities that share the dam constitute committee for land use awaiting cabinet approval of master plan

• September 2022 to date-ED and his officials have gone silent about the masterplan of the dam, commissioned by the late former Zimbabwe President, Robert Mugabe on May 18 2017. And thousands of villagers displaced by the dam are still toiling in the sun in the semi arid Chingwizi, still waiting for the sugarcane irrigation schemes promised by the President four years ago.