Drying Save compounds Manicaland drought woes

OBEY MANAYITI

Emilia Sidhuna, an elderly villager from Konjana area near Checheche, said the drying up of the river had come as a blow to the local communities that relied on the water to irrigate their crops and for livestock.

A storm is already brewing between a local investor Green Fuel and villagers over the utilisation of the little remaining water in the river as the ethanol producing company allegedly does not want villagers to draw water from a section of the river where it has its infrastructure.

Villagers and Green Fuel fight for such ponds as the one in the picture.

As early as 5am, scores of villagers gather at the water source near Green Fuel to catch fish using mosquito nets.

The villagers are selling the fish in a bid to raise money to feed their families.

“There are few places where there are still large volumes of water. Villagers are now fishing where there are still large pools of water,” Sidhuna said.

“Instead of spending time in the fields, villagers are now more into fishing for survival.

“There is nothing more to do considering that we are experiencing a serious dry spell here.

“Save River used to be our source of livelihood, but as it stands, there are only wide waterless banks where people are now extracting river sand for a living.”

Villagers said extraction of river sand was also threatening the environment.

The situation has also affected irrigation schemes in Middle Sabi where there used to be farming activities on a commercial scale.
Platform for Youth Development (PYD), an organisation based in Chipinge, said the situation was dire and had affected thousands of villagers who used to rely on the river.

“Birchenough Bridge area is a pale shadow of its former self. There is mud and the river is now shallow,” Claris Madhuku from PYD said.

“The water is smelly. From Birchenough to Chisumbanje, the river is getting narrower due to the cutting down of trees, which makes the soils loose.

“There are less gardening projects in surrounding communities.

“Communities living around Save River obviously have their lives intertwined, or closely connected with this once mighty river such that any changes in its condition affects them.”

Madhuku said communities relied on the river for their nutrition gardens, livestock, washing clothes and bathing and even baptism for religious groupings.

“All this has in a way been affected by siltation, which has made it difficult for the river to maintain good water levels,” he said.
“Most of the water is dirty and now has a green element which makes it unusable.”

Musikavanhu MP Prosper Mutseyami said the low water levels had left people struggling for survival in his constituency.

“The depletion of water levels in the Save River due to siltation has caused untold suffering as people cannot fish on a large scale,” he said.

“It has forced people to suspend brick moulding due to the scarcity of water

“People have also reduced green gardens along the river, though the vegetables helped to supplement their income.

“Naturally, all businesses which depend on the availability of water have been affected badly.”

The MP added: “The siltation of the river has caused perennial floods that have affected people close to the river, especially downstream because of the overflow due to too much sand in the river. It’s really a sad scenario.”

Mutseyami said because of lack of irrigation and the current dry spell, people were also facing severe food shortages in his constituency.

Buhera South legislator, Joseph Chinotimba weighed in, saying the depletion of Save River water was a disaster for his constituency.

“There is no water in my constituency. Those saying it has depleted are not saying the truth, the actual position is that it is drying up,” he said.

“Those activities that people used to do in Save are no more. Save is no longer the fearsome river to cross as was the case in the past.

“This is a disaster and we are only relying on boreholes. Currently, that is our only source of water.

“I am in Harare trying to get accessories for boreholes at the DDF [District Development Fund], but there is none because Treasury didn’t release money.”

Chinotimba added: “I don’t know what has forsaken us to deserve this. This is a serious matter and we are now faced with severe food shortages.”

The situation has also affected places like Maunganidze near Birchenough Bridge. Representatives of Save Odzi Trust blamed reckless mining at the diamond fields in Marange for the misfortune.

“There is a lot of irrigation around Maunganidze and surrounding areas. The water levels have gone down and the water is heavily polluted now.

“It’s no longer business as usual. Fishing in Save River used to be big business and people would supplement money to buy food. That has since stopped because Save is drying up,” Tichaenzana Chibuwe, a member of the Save Odzi Trust said.

He said government had to deal with the disaster because it ignored earlier calls to stop pollution of major rivers such as Save and Odzi by diamond mining companies.

Labour and Social Welfare minister Priscilla Mupfumira on Friday said the government was in the process of mobilising more resources for the affected communities.

The government has since secured $200 million for maize imports, but Mupfumira said more was needed.

“More resources are being mobilised and we are in the process of doing proper assessment of the situation,” she said.

“We will finalise the number of households we want to feed. The mobilised funds will take us to the harvest.

“It’s a process, but we hope the mobilised funds will take us to 2017.”

Grain Millers’ Association of Zimbabwe chairman Tafadzwa Musarara said more maize imports were needed to arrest the hunger.

“From a private sector perspective, we believe that there is need to procure additional supplies of 320 000 tonnes to ensure adequate maize meal stocks up to July 30 2016,” he said.

“Millers are currently busy putting logistics and machinery in place, which include securing berthing space at the ports of Durban, Beira, Maputo and possibly Nankala, so that we receive maize from both South and North America, as well as Russia and Ukraine.”

“We will be disclosing our logistics plan as soon as we finish next week.”

Early last week Rural Development and Preservation of National Cultural Heritage minister Abednico Ncube urged chiefs to advise their subjects to destock to avoid huge losses as a result of the drought.