{"id":30312,"date":"2020-11-19T17:12:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-19T15:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/new-zimbabwe-com"},"modified":"2020-11-19T17:12:25","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T15:12:25","slug":"new-zimbabwe-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/new-zimbabwe-com","title":{"rendered":"New Zimbabwe.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press<\/a> – Zimbabwe<\/a>. <\/strong><\/span>Daily Maverick<\/b> – FOUR Zimbabwe dams have been earmarked for provision of water to the Musina-Makhado SEZ, the R145bn industrial project on the banks of the Limpopo that\u2019s expected to include its own 3,300MW coal-fired power station.<\/p>\n

In the context of food insecurity and climate change-induced drought, the loss of water from these dams will make life harder for millions of Zimbabweans. Will that be enough to convince the heads of state of SA, Zim, and China to call it off as a potentially deadly idea?<\/p>\n

At the end of January 2014, when soldiers arrived on the banks of the Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam to relocate 20,000 Zimbabwean citizens to a displaced persons camp funded by international donors, they were met with stiff resistance.<\/p>\n

While pushback from rural villagers wasn\u2019t new to these soldiers, what was new were the circumstances. The previous two months had seen record rainfall in the country\u2019s south-eastern province of Masvingo, with measurements surpassing anything witnessed since the early 1970s, and while the authorities were blaming climate change for the flooding, the villagers were blaming the authorities themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen armed soldiers came to evict us,\u201d an unnamed peasant farmer told Human Rights Watch a few months after the event, \u201cwe pleaded with them to open the tunnels in the dam wall and allow water to flow downstream of the dam, but they refused.\u201d<\/p>\n

The contention of the villagers, as backed up by dam project workers, was that regulation tunnels could have prevented the floods. According to an engineer, there was only one conclusion to be drawn from the fact that the Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam was under construction at the time \u2014 the decision to hold water in the dam should have been taken after the villagers were relocated, he said.<\/p>\n

But, reportedly, the commander of the army unit was resolute.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Mugabe directed that this dam should be constructed so that it contains water in it,\u201d the commander informed the villagers, \u201cand you ask us to let the water out? No. It is time for you to leave now. You will receive your compensation later, when government gets the money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Needless to say, the compensation would be nowhere near what these villagers had been promised. Back in 2011, when the resettlement programme for the Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam was put into effect, the Zimbabwean government had guaranteed that each displaced family would receive a 17-hectares plot of land and that each household would be compensated based on property evaluations.<\/p>\n

But by the end of 2013, when just 712 out of the total 6,393 families had been relocated \u2014 partly due to the resistance of families that wanted to be compensated before moving \u2014 the average size of the new plots was just four hectares. These families would nonetheless be far better off than those forced to relocate after the floods, who would receive only one hectare of land on which to eke out their livelihoods.<\/p>\n

And so ultimately, after receiving $20-million in flood relief donor funding, the Zimbabwean government turned the record rainfall of the 2013\/14 summer season into a tidy saving on the national budget. Not only that, but the flood victims, whose crops had been destroyed, stopped receiving aid from the World Food Programme in September 2014. The Masvingo provincial administrator\u2019s office would eventually resort to a range of coercive tactics \u2014 including physical violence, denial of access to food and water, blocking of toilets and closure of the school and clinic \u2014 to shift the villagers onto the one-hectare plots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis situation contravenes every standard for dealing with internal displacement that has been put forward in the last 15 years,\u201d noted Human Rights Watch in their report, before outlining the relevant clauses in the Zimbabwean, African Union and United Nations constitutions and conventions that had been breached.<\/p>\n

As universally criminal as it was, though, the back-story of the Tokwe-Mukorsi Dam was destined to fade into history, consigned to the dustbin of Zimbabwean government abuses that had been ignored and forgotten by almost every member of the AU and SADC \u2014 including, most notably, Zimbabwe\u2019s powerful neighbour to the south.<\/p>\n

In September 2020, when the dam would be named on page 448 of the Draft Environmental Impact Assessment for the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone in the far north of South Africa, there would be no mention of the thousands of human beings whose lives had been uprooted. Instead, there would be an impassive acknowledgement of a different \u2014 and potentially more deadly \u2014 type of crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe projected water use for the SEZ is estimated at 80 million cubic metres per annum,\u201d declared the document, in the section on \u201cinternational\u201d water implications. \u201cThis demand will create immense pressure on the local and cross\u2010border water resources as well as the regional transferring catchments relevant to this study area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Listed as one of four Zimbabwean dams earmarked for provision of water to the SEZ, all the document stated about Tokwe-Mukorsi was that it was a \u201cnewly completed dam located 250km from Beitbridge.\u201d Aside from the human rights abuses that had been the direct result of its construction, the Draft EIA neglected to note why the dam had in fact been built.<\/p>\n

Tokwe-Mukorsi, it turned out, was commissioned by the Zimbabwean government in the mid-1990s to provide irrigation and hydroelectricity to the sugar plantations and communal farmers in the semi-arid regions of Masvingo.<\/p>\n

As the largest inland dam in Zimbabwe, with an 89,2m-high dam wall, it had been beset by funding challenges and delays from the moment that Italian company Salini Impregilo JVC began construction in 1998 \u2014 the eventual cost overrun, when the dam was finally completed in 2015, was $165-million, more than double the initial budget.<\/p>\n

The question, for anyone who knew anything about the Musina-Makhado SEZ, was whether the final price-tag of $300-million was about to be (literally) flushed down the tubes. Of course, while the compilers of the Draft EIA could not be altogether candid in response to such a question, there was no doubt that they expected it to be asked.<\/p>\n

In the very next sentence, the Draft EIA acknowledged the \u201cimpacts of climate change in these catchment areas\u201d and its unavoidable consequences for \u201cboth surface and groundwater\u201d in the country. Climate collapse, noted the compilers of the Draft EIA, \u201cwill affect Zimbabwe as well as the SEZ, which envisages to use water from Zimbabwe for day-to-day operations\u201d.<\/p>\n

For more than two decades now, exposing the secrets of Zimbabwe\u2019s ruling party, Zanu PF, has been a deadly dangerous business. Of the range of sources that Daily Maverick contacted for comment during the reporting for this story, there was not a single Zimbabwean citizen or resident who gave consent for his or her name to be used. One of our potential sources, who felt he owed us an explanation for his reticence, forwarded us a circular issued by the government of Zimbabwe in late October 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cInformation Minister Monica Mutsvangwa has told the media that Cabinet has approved [an] amendment that will criminalise the unauthorised communication or negotiation by private citizens with foreign governments,\u201d the circular stated in its opening sentence.<\/p>\n

Further down, there was confirmation that the impetus for the amendment had come from President Emmerson Mnangagwa himself:<\/p>\n

\u201cHarare is not happy with being called out for bad things at a time when it is trying to re-engage with the international community. President Mnangagwa, when he officially opened the 3rd Session of the 9th Parliament of Zimbabwe, highlighted his displeasure with NGOs and promised that [the] Bill was coming to alter their operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether this had anything to do with the fact that Wally Schultz, the founder of the NGO Save Our Limpopo Valley Environment (SOLVE) and the most committed and effective anti-SEZ activist in South Africa, received a barrage of \u201cjoin the campaign\u201d requests from Zimbabwe in late October was impossible to confirm. Schultz, who would tragically suffer a stroke on Friday, 30 October \u2014 a massive blow by all accounts to the conservation movement in Limpopo \u2014 had told Daily Maverick the day before that he was treating all such requests with the utmost circumspection.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey smell like Zim government snoops to me,\u201d he\u2019d said, \u201cI\u2019ve refused more than half of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legitimate or not, what Schultz, like the rest of the growing cabal of anti-SEZ activists knew, was that our own government was dead set on going ahead with the R145-billion project. In late August 2020, the SEZ\u2019s CEO Lehlogonolo Masoga published an article in which the initiative was presented as a fait accompli \u2014 its \u201clocational advantage\u201d close to the Beitbridge border with Zimbabwe, he suggested, would be one of its greatest benefits, setting it up as a potential \u201cinland intermodal terminal\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whatever that meant, it was clear that the major north-south trucking route that connected the SADC bloc to South Africa via Zimbabwe had always been a core impetus for the SEZ. As for the impact that the project\u2019s various industrial plants \u2014 \u201ccoal power, coke, ferrochrome, ferromanganese, pig iron, carbon steel, stainless steel, lime, silicon-manganese, metal silicon and calcium carbide\u201d \u2014 would have on the irreplaceable biodiversity of the Limpopo River Valley, Masoga would only offer that \u201cspecialist studies\u201d on pollution and climate change had been commissioned.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith regard to water scarcity,\u201d he added, \u201cefforts are being made to avoid tapping into the already stressed water resources by exploring various innovative engineering options, including cross-border water-transfer schemes.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this point, Masoga seemed to be taking his cue from Lindiwe Sisulu, South Africa\u2019s human settlements, water and sanitation minister, who in June 2020 had responded to questions in Parliament regarding the water resource implications of the SEZ.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Zimbabwe-South Africa Joint Water Commission is about to initiate planning studies to investigate water resource development options in Zimbabwe for the benefit of both countries,\u201d she\u2019d said. \u201cSince the signing of the agreement, the technical teams of both countries have been continuously meeting to initiate the joint studies and to make updates on water related issues of mutual interest to both parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

As far as Daily Maverick could ascertain, the \u201cagreement\u201d to which Sisulu was referring was nowhere in the public domain. Although the local environmental NGO Earthlife Africa had submitted a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (Paia), at the time of this writing nothing had been forthcoming. Neither had Schultz, for all his efforts, managed to get sight of the document.<\/p>\n

That the agreement existed was beyond dispute, however, especially given the report that had been commissioned by the Department of Water and Sanitation in 2016, entitled \u201cLimpopo Water Management Area North Reconciliation Strategy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Here, the legislation, treaties and policy documents that \u201chave a bearing on international obligations regarding water allocations out of the shared Limpopo River\u201d were enumerated. But since the report referred throughout its 140 pages to the SEZ and Zimbabwe, it was implicit that these legal instruments would have governed the negotiations of the Zimbabwe-South Africa Joint Water Commission too.<\/p>\n

Among the instruments mentioned were the South African Constitution, the National Water Act of 1998 and the Convention on the Law of the Non-navigational Uses of International Watercourses Adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on 21 May 1997. Also featured were the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the SADC Revised Protocol on Shared Water Courses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe character of these legislation, treaties and policy documents promotes inter alia the sustainable, equitable and reasonable utilisation of shared watercourse systems and avoiding causing any negative impact to the neighbouring state,\u201d noted the report.<\/p>\n

How that could be reconciled with the report\u2019s stated intention to divert 30 million cubic metres a year from Zimbabwe\u2019s Zhovhe Dam to the Musina-Makhado SEZ was anyone\u2019s guess.<\/p>\n

In September 2019, the Zimbabwean company Zhovhe Estate announced that in the previous three years it had invested more than $10-million on irrigation infrastructure development, livestock production and fisheries \u201cto complement government efforts towards food and nutrition security.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, according to the World Food Programme, the country was in the grip of its worst food crisis in a decade, with more than half the population \u2014 7.7 million people \u2014 lacking reliable access to affordable nutrition. Not only was acute malnutrition up almost 50% against 2018, but undependable rains were hitting subsistence farmers the hardest, since maize \u2014 their staple crop \u2014 had always been the most water-intensive.<\/p>\n

Zhovhe Estate was of course named for the dam upon which its business model depended, and as \u201cthe biggest supplier of flour, mealie meal and fish to communities in Matabeleland region\u201d it was in full alignment with the intended purpose of the infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Zhovhe Dam had been completed in 1995, with a carrying capacity of 133 million cubic metres \u2014 at its opening, according to Daily Maverick\u2019s sources, Zimbabwe\u2019s former agriculture minister Kumbirai Kangai announced that 60% of the dam\u2019s capacity had been earmarked for commercial agribusiness and 40% for subsistence farming.<\/p>\n

Although Daily Maverick failed to get hold of Zhovhe Estate\u2019s CEO for comment, one of our sources did say this:<\/p>\n

\u201cThat dam is the lifeblood of the area. Without it, it\u2019s pretty much death.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the manner in which the Musina-Makhado SEZ would affect the bustling border town of Beitbridge, with its population of 43,000, was another question entirely. As the main supplier of water to the town, the Zhovhe Dam had for more than two decades been core to its existence \u2014 so much so that Dr Aron Maboyi, Zanu-PF politburo member, had in January 2020 berated the citizens of Beitbridge for squandering their good fortune.<\/p>\n

\u201cDr Maboyi,\u201d according to the government-backed Chronicle newspaper, \u201csaid Beitbridge people had only themselves to blame if they do not make use of important natural resources in their area to turn around their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

The good doctor, it transpired, was making such comments in the context of the prevailing drought, and although the dam wasn\u2019t exactly a \u201cnatural\u201d resource, it was clearly the nub of the Chronicle\u2019s propaganda effort. Zhovhe Dam \u201cis at a high place,\u201d added Dr Maboyi, \u201cand can distribute water to most places here through gravitation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which was exactly the term employed by the compilers of the all-important Draft EIA for the Musina-Makhado SEZ. \u201cRaw water from Zhove via gravity for pick up at Beitbridge,\u201d the document stated in shorthand on page 448, after noting that \u201cpotable water from Beitbridge water treatment plant\u201d could also be used.<\/p>\n

The most concerning thing about the place of the Zhovhe Dam in the South African government\u2019s plans for the SEZ, however, was the fact that it was marked as \u201cshort term\u201d \u2014 meaning, whatever was going on in the closed-door meetings of the Zimbabwe-South Africa Joint Water Commission, the dam was more than likely top of the agenda.<\/p>\n

As for the remaining two Zimbabwean dams in the South African government\u2019s sights (Tokwe-Mukorsi, as per the Draft EIA, was slated for the medium term), these were set down for use in the far future, mainly because construction on both had yet to begin.<\/p>\n

The Thuli-Moswa upstream of Zhovhe in the Mzingwane River catchment, with its capacity of 420 million cubic metres, and the Kondo-Chitowe Dam in the Save River catchment, which at a price-tag of $3.7 billion would overtake Tokwe-Mukorsi as the largest in the country, were no doubt where the joint water commission was hedging its climate change bets.<\/p>\n

Because, ultimately, even the compilers of the Draft EIA had to admit that none of this was a great idea. In order to understand the full impact of climate collapse on Zimbabwe\u2019s water resources, their model looked at worst- and best-case carbon emission scenarios \u2014 and either way, their equations added up to disaster.<\/p>\n

\u201cRunde and Mzingwane water catchment areas, which are sources of short\u2010 and medium\u2010term water for the SEZ, will be affected the most,\u201d the Draft EIA explained, with reference to the Zhovhe and Tokwe-Mukorsi dams.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is predicted the mean annual precipitation will decline in the region of between 12% for higher mitigation emission scenarios and 16% for lower emission mitigation scenarios by 2050. This significant uncertainty related to water supply poses a major risk to the SEZ.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, again, was the project really going ahead? The question could perhaps best be answered by what the South African government had chosen to overlook.<\/p>\n

In early April 2020, Daily Maverick ran an investigative feature that outlined the history behind the deal, highlighting the fact that the Department of Trade and Industry had on 15 September 2017 awarded the SEZ operator permit to a Chinese-owned company called the South African Energy Metallurgical Base (Pty) Ltd. As it turned out, the Zimbabwean police \u201cthrough Interpol\u201d had issued an arrest warrant for the company\u2019s chairman, Mr Ning Yat Hoi, in the very same month that the permit was granted.<\/p>\n

Ning denied the allegation that he had defrauded a pair of Zimbabwean mining companies to the tune of $2.76-million, and informed Daily Maverick that if we wanted to know the truth we would find it in accounting firm Ernst and Young\u2019s Zimbabwe office. Unable to get to Harare due to Covid-19 travel restrictions, we couldn\u2019t proceed any further. But then if such evidence existed, it had never been made available to the South African public\u2014the DTI, despite all the questions that the media had thrown at them regarding Ning, had never once acknowledged the problem.<\/p>\n

The suggestion, then, was that the Musina-Makhado SEZ had been driven from the start by the agendas of top-tier geopolitics. With nine Chinese companies having pledged R145-billion to the project, it was couched from the outset in the language of foreign direct investment and jobs. Behind that, however, was the place of the People\u2019s Republic of China in Africa \u2014 as Daily Maverick argued in November 2018, Beijing\u2019s \u201cBelt and Road Initiative,\u201d the largest development plan of the modern era, had always been poised to push Africa\u2019s fragile ecosystems over the edge.<\/p>\n

Could President Cyril Ramaphosa or President Emmerson Mnangagwa stand up to Premier Xi Jinping? Would they even want to? If the answer was no, and by all accounts it was, the rural citizens of Zimbabwe were about to lose a lot of the water in their dams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. Daily Maverick – FOUR Zimbabwe dams have been earmarked for provision of water to the Musina-Makhado SEZ, the R145bn industrial project on the banks of the Limpopo that\u2019s expected to include its own 3,300MW coal-fired power station. In the context of food insecurity and climate change-induced drought, the loss of water from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":30311,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7,35,15],"tags":[1493,19],"class_list":["post-30312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-zimbabwe"],"yoast_head":"\nNew Zimbabwe.com - zimbabwe<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zimbabwe\/all-news\/new-zimbabwe-com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"New Zimbabwe.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. 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