MZWP: Paper trail of empty promises

BULAWAYO - Council sounded its latest alarm bells this month over the city's precarious water situation, warning that major supply dams could be decommissioned in the next three months.

For the umpteenth time, the country's second largest city is yet again bracing itself for a tough dry season ahead.

It is a nerve-wrecking situation, not only for the city's estimated one-million plus residents, but also for the few remaining companies.

The majority of the companies that used to keep the city alive have either shut down or relocated to the capital, Harare, since 2011.

This has left Bulawayo, once the country's industrial hub, teetering on the brink as it regresses into a "ghost-town" in the wake of shut downs and idle factories being converted into centres of worship.

Over 100 companies, which were based in Bulawayo, have shut down according to conservative estimates.

Independent estimates double the figures.

A poor rainy season linked to the El Nino weather phenomenon, which hit southern Africa last year, is behind the latest water shortages.

City engineer, Simela Dube, painted a gloomy picture on the outlook, with 64 percent of the city's raw water supplies already used up.

"Our water levels are now at 36 percent of capacity. Upper Ncema Dam has been decommissioned as it is now one percent full. We're anticipating that Umzingwane will be decommissioned in the next three months, if water is not used sparingly. But if water is conserved, Umzingwane can take us to the next rainy season," he said.

City fathers, with their backs against the wall, have had to adopt various measures to try and manage the meager water supplies.

Water rationing, water conservation campaigns, the commissioning of the Mtshabezi water pipeline and the resuscitation of the Nyamandlovu aquifer boreholes are some of the strategies that have been adopted in the past to try and juggle water supplies to meet demand from residents.

The Mtshabezi pipeline, built by a Chinese construction company in 2012, is intended to provide relief to the city's residents by allowing additional water to be drawn from the Mtshabezi Dam, a reservoir on the Mtshabezi River, southeast of Bulawayo.

But only a fraction of the Mtshabezi supply potential is being harnessed because power cuts are affecting the pumping of water into the city's water reticulation system.

In the latest installment of measures, water limits have also been introduced for residents to ensure water consumption is kept to allocated amounts - with heavy fines imposed on offenders.

Observers agree that all these measures by the city fathers can go only for so long.

The city is desperately in need of a lasting solution to its water crisis.

A permanent solution to Bulawayo's water problems, it has long been established, lies in drawing water from the Zambezi River, located nearly 450km north-west of the city.

The idea, first mooted by the colonial government in 1901, led to the formation of the Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project (MZWP) in 1912.

The MZWP - also called the Zambezi Water Pipeline Project - envisions the drawing of the Zambezi water through an underground water pipeline to Bulawayo.

The yet to be completed Gwayi-Shangani Dam, whose construction started years back, was meant to be part of this mammoth project.

Ian Smith's Rhodesian government conducted the first pre-feasibility studies in 1934, but nothing was done on the project until the crippling Matabeleland drought of 1991 and 1992, which forced council and others to revisit the idea.

It is estimated that the MZWP would cost more than US$500 million.

With the cash-strapped government surviving from hand to mouth, economists rule out the likelihood of the administration having any extra money lying around to be used for Bulawayo's water needs.

Foreign direct investment has also been scarce, with the country only earning US$525 million worth of investments last year, according to the Zimbabwe Investment Authority.

After Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980, President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party took charge of the MZWP.

To whip up political support in Matabeleland, President Mugabe's government promised to implement the project and deliver water to the people of Bulawayo.

The ruling party gave control of the project to Dumiso Dabengwa, once a popular political figure in Matabeleland and current leader of ZAPU.

But 36 years after independence, the promises made to provide water through the MZWP remain unfulfilled.

The ever shifting political landscape seems to have made the implementation of MZWP difficult, with residents left to suffer the most.

Dabengwa left Zanu-PF in 2008 in a huff after pulling some ZAPU members from the Unity Accord signed between Zanu-PF and ZAPU in 1987 to end nearly a decade of political disturbances in the southern part of the country.

In 2009, another union called the Government of National Unity (GNU) - consummated between Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) following disputed election results of 2008, took control of the MZWP.

The man who was at the helm of the water ministry during the GNU tenure was Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, a former official of the smaller MDC formation.

His departure from government in 2013 at the end of the unity government consequently meant that the MZWP would yet again have to change hands - suffering yet another stop-start phase.

Zibusiso Dube, a political commentator, said MZWP had failed to take off because of lack of commitment and lack of accountability in government.

"That nothing has been done towards the project in 36 years of independence is an indictment on government. It also vilifies critics of government who accuse it of regionalism," he said.

"One can't help, but think the project would be taken more seriously if it was for other regions in the country."

Media scholar and political commentator, Joseph Mlotshwa said successive governments - from the Rhodesian administration to President Mugabe's Zanu-PF, the unity government and then Zanu-PF again lacked the political will to see MZWP through.

"It is also a lack of appreciation of what the project means for the whole of Zimbabwe and not necessarily Matabeleland… In any case, it is all about creating green jobs, so it is a sustainable project that means so much for the economy of Zimbabwe," he said.

With an election around the corner in 2018, the city's residents have become long accustomed to empty promises by politicians, who never deliver.

The next election, however, promises to be a tall order for the ruling party, which would most likely use water as a campaign tool to extend its stranglehold into Bulawayo.

But will the discerning voter, who has a paper trail of empty promises over MZWP to refer to, be fooled once again by the politicians?