The 42 kilometre pipeline, which will link the Mtshabezi and Ncema dams, is set to transform the lives of villagers along its corridor as well as alleviate Bulawayo’s water shortages. It should be completed before the end of this year.
“This is a very important project for the people of Matabeleland and Bulawayo. Shortage of water, among other factors such as liquidity and recapitalisation problems, was one main reason why industries were closing in the province. The most affected industries are textile. The agenda for Zimbabwe now is reconstruction. Our industries are using very old and dilapidated machinery,” said the Prime Minister.
He said government, through the Ministry of Finance, had set aside funds to assist companies.
He was accompanied by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, the Minister of Water Resources and Development, the Mayor of Bulawayo and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Water, Ringson Chistiko.
Local people will also be able to use the water from the Mtshabezi dam for irrigation purposes.
“Matabeleland is a drought area and we hope the locals will be able also to use the water for irrigation purposes. It is also in the national interest that the state should compensate those families affected by the construction of the pipeline,” said Tsvangirai
The Mtshabezi pipeline project is a short term measure meant to address the city’s perennial water shortages that have seen some suburbs going for weeks without water and industries operating at a low capacity
Work on the project stopped in the year 2007 due to lack of funds. The project was mooted in 1994 but the Bulawayo City Council could not afford to fund it. The city’s population currently stands at about 1, 5 million and the last dam to be built was commissioned in 1976.
Bulawayo draws water from five dams, namely Upper and Lower Ncema, Inyankuni, Umzingwane and Insiza. But they are heavily silted due to illegal upstream gold panning.
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