DA urges stakeholders to utilise Manyuchi Dam

Government and development partners have been urged to fully exploit the underutilised Manyuchi Dam for irrigation development to end chronic food shortages caused by recurrent droughts in the arid Mwenezi District.

The dam, built in the late 1980s, has largely remained idle amid reports that only 30 percent of the water body’s water was currently going towards irrigation.

This is despite the fact that Mwenezi is one of the driest districts in Masvingo where villagers rely on food handouts from Government and its partners every year.

Mwenezi District administrator Mrs Rosemary Chingwe lamented the underutilisation of Manyuchi and challenged Government to establish more irrigation schemes to boost food security.

“We have Manyuchi, which is one of the biggest dams in the country, but communities in the water body’s immediate environment and others in Mwenezi District are not benefiting from it.

“Our appeal to Government and its partners is for them to develop more irrigation schemes so that the dam’s water does not get lost to the ocean and evaporation.

“At the moment only 33 percent of the dam’s water is being used for irrigation. The water is irrigating 4 000 hectares of sugarcane at Mwenezana estates and the rest is idle,” said Mrs Chingwe.

The Mwenezi DA also urged Government to set up piped water schemes for communities in the district who perennially grapple with shortage of potable water because of extreme aridity.

Mrs Chingwe said besides Manyuchi benefiting surrounding communities through provision of piped water, schools adjacent the water body such as Maranda High School could benefit.

Such schools, she said, could exploit the dam in the implementation of the new education curriculum through teaching of subjects such as agriculture if piped water was connected.

Communities in the greater Maranda area can also harness Manyuchi Dam water and start nutritional gardens to boost both their nutritional requirements and their household income by selling part of their produce.

Manyuchi Dam was commissioned in the late 1980s with its water billed to irrigate a planned palm tree plantation in   Mwenezi.

The palm tree project suffered a stillbirth and since then Manyuchi has largely remained underutilised with its water irrigating only a few small schemes and Mwenezana Sugar Estates owned by Lowveld sugar producer, Tongaat Hulett Zimbabwe.