80 000ha boost for Nuanetsi Ranch irrigation
This will also entail reorganisation for the settlers to economically utilise their land courtesy of the accelerated irrigation development programme.
Implementation of some of the aspects of the Tugwi-Mukosi development master plan has already started with the Government set to start irrigation designs on 80 000 hectares available for irrigation at Nuanetsi Ranch that straddles parts of Mwenezi and Chiredzi districts.
The irrigation designs will see communities settled within Nuanetsi being reorganised to follow a new modern development model that disposes them to economically utilise their land via irrigation using Tugwi-Mukosi dam water in line with Vision 2030.
When the Tugwi-Mukosi masterplan is complete it will then go to Cabinet for approval.
The plan is expected to open floodgates for investment in and around the water body that cost US$250 million to built. However, currently the Government has since released $700 million for the irrigation designs and boundary marking at the 80 000ha ceded by the Nuanetsi Ranch with the development expected to culminate in reorganised settlers having tenure documents by the end of July this year.
The Tugwi-Mukosi development masterplan is now around 99 percent complete but Government has already hit the ground running in implementing some aspects of the plan that will comprise the spatial plan and irrigation development plan around Zimbabwe’s largest inland dam.
Lands,Agriculture,Fisheries,Water and Rural Development Minister, Dr Anxious Masuka, confirmed that processes were already in motion to implement aspects of the TugwiMukosi development master plan.
In that line, the Ministry of Local Government and Public Works has since Gazetted the Masvingo-Chivi combination planning authority to review developmental projects around the reservoir. Government has been working round the clock to make sure Tugwi-Mukosi Dam-that was commissioned in May 2017-is fully utilized to contribute to aggregate national economic growth in line with Vision 2030.
Minister Masuka revealed that as part of implementing the dam’s master plan,Lake Mutirikwi has stopped supplying irrigation water to Chiredzi and cane fields in the area with water from the bigger Tugwi-Mukosi Dam now supplying the cane estates.
Lake Mutirikwi water will be channelled towards development the Masvingo greenbelt,said Minister Masuka.
“The Tugwi-Mukosi master plan is 99 percent complete but we don’t have to wait for 100 percent completion of the masterplan in order to start implementing aspects of the master plan,”said Minister Masuka. “For example we have already decommissioned Lake Mutirikwi from supplying Chiredzi and sugar cane plantations in the Lowveld and this has enabled Lake Mutirikwi to spill for the first time in 39 years.
“We are now looking at the Masvingo greenbelt as a result of this. Tugwi-Mukosi will supply Chiredzi and the cane plantations and we are already doing that.” The Cabinet minister pointed out that an initial three blocks at Nuanetsi Ranch have been identified for the first phase of irrigation development.
This will also entail reorganisation for the settlers to economically utilise their land courtesy of the accelerated irrigation development programme.
More than 3 000 families at Chingwizi block under Nuanetsi will also benefit with a massive irrigation project in the offing for them according to Minister Masuka.
“Treasury has allocated $700 million for irrigation development for communities at Nuanetsi and we have agreed on three irrigation to benefit these communities.”
“We have agreed that by the end of February(this month) irrigation designs on the 80 000ha at Naunetsi should have been completed and by June 15 a modern resettlement model for the communities that speaks to Vision 2030 attainment should be in place and also that by 31 July this year people in this communities must have tenure documents.” According to Minister Masuka these communities will venture into citrus production and sugar cane production among other crops.
“Our irrigation teams will do a replan at Nuanetsi along the model of Vision 2030 accelerator so that the communities(at Nuanetsi) are not settled on the old resettlement A1 model but in terms of Vision 2030 that these resettlements are going to participate in development through accelerated irrigation development,”he said. “Chingwizi is now irrigable and there will be massive irrigation development for families displaced by Tugwi-Mukosi dam.”
The Cabinet minister also revealed that Government was also closely working with Mwenezi Rural District Council for development or several irrigation schemes in the district as part of the land irrigable with Tugwi-Mukosi water fell under the local authority.
Developing irrigation for displaced Tugwi-Mukosi families will help bring closure to a long standing complaint by the families that they were yet to benefit from the water body which caused their displacement from their ancestral lands in the dam’s basin in Chivi and Masvingo districts in 2014.
The Lowveld is primed to be a perennial greenbelt straddling over 200 000ha under the Government’s integrated irrigation development master plan that is predicated on full utilisation of existing and new dams in southern Masvingo.
While Tugwi-Mukosi is currently Zimbabwe’s largest inland water body with full capacity of 1,8 billion cubic meters,the Lowveld integrated master plan envisages building of yet another dam,Runde-Tende that will be built at the confluence of Tende and Runde rivers in southernmost Chivi district.-The Herald
