WORK has started on the clearance of land for the laying of a pipeline from Kunzvi dam to Harare while excavation of the treatment plant is ongoing.
Once complete, Kunzvi dam will ease Harare’s water shortages by supplying the eastern suburbs of the capital, Ruwa and Chitungwiza.
Water treatment costs will be lower as the dam is upstream of the city unlike the heavily polluted Lake Chivero which is downstream.
The dam site is 67 kilometres northeast of the capital, near Juru Growth Point on the Nyanguvi River.
Speaking during a recent tour, Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) resident Engineer Davison Madondo said construction of the dam is well on course.
“The project started in 2021 and we are now at 47 percent completion. We are currently placing material on the dam wall. It is very critical that fuel, cement and explosives are available in time before the rainy season,” he said.
Eng Madondo said there is also a need to resettle more than 300 households living on the critical path of construction including downstream and along the dam wall as their continued stay was retarding construction progress.
“We have some families who reside in the vicinity of our work. Their presence affects our work such as blasting and they have to be relocated. We have since found an area for their relocation after Chief Mangwende of Murehwa gave us one.
“The area has 500 hectares of irrigation to be drawn from the dam and they will equally benefit,” he said.
Eng Madondo said the Government had since started pegging plots for each family set to benefit from the irrigation scheme as well as demarcate the areas where the villagers would be resettled. Some graves had to be relocated.
“We have since engaged the local traditional leaders and an alternative place has since been identified. Reburial arrangements for 17 graves are underway while 64 households are to be urgently relocated and they will benefit from the irrigation programme,” he said.
More than 150 local youths had been employed, and the community was also benefitting through selling wares, food, and agricultural produce.
Construction of the dam began in 2021, and the expected date of completion is December this year.
In addition to supplying water to Harare and surrounding towns, there will be irrigation water for surrounding communities.
The Government has constructed several dams such as Machekeranwa in Marondera and Marovanyati in Buhera, while the Gwayi-Shangani, the solution to Bulawayo’s water problems, is also currently under construction.
Source Herald
