Gwayi-Shangani Dam Construction, A Legacy Of Displacements Continuing?

The Gwayi-Shangani dam project will see a relocation of 502 families and a school submerge in water. Image by Zinwa

BY LIZWE SEBATHA | @The_CBNews | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. | OCT 3, 2021

As government celebrates the Gwayi-Shangani dam construction, the same cannot be said of several hundreds of Binga villagers who stare eviction to pave the way for the giant structure.

BINGA (The Citizen Bulletin) — The Gwayi-Shangani dam, which is expected to be the third-largest inland water body in Zimbabwe, should be completed in December next year according to the schedule by the Chinese contractor, China International Water and Electric Corporation.

The Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) is also involved in constructing the dam with a 634 million cubic metres holding capacity.

To speed up construction, a 24hour shift is now in place.

The dam is part of the greater Matabeleland Zambezi Water Project identified in 1912 as a long-term solution to the perennial water challenges faced in Matabeleland North, South, and Bulawayo provinces.

However, the dam construction brings anxiety to several hundreds of families of Lubimbi who are facing eviction from their ancestral lands with no clear relocation plan from the government.

“While the project brings along several benefits at a national level and downstream riparian communities, it has its negatives, especially to the Lubimbi community,” reads a letter from Lubimbi villagers addressed to Matabeleland North Minister of State Richard Moyo dated September 12.

“The project will see the relocation of 502 families or households. Lubimbi 2 Primary School will be submerged in water, so will be the dip tank. About 60 boreholes will be destroyed; roads and the Shangani Bridge will be destroyed as well as homes, latrines, cattle pens, arable land and grazing land.”
…reads a letter from Lubimbi villagers

The letter also highlighted that while Lubimbi High School falls outside the dam, 157 learners from the affected villages will be affected.

In addition, Lubimbi Clinic will no longer be accessible, and it has been serving the Lubumbi 2 community. Arable land totalling 1 506 hectares will be affected or submerged in water, while irrigation schemes totalling 10 hectares will be destroyed.

Reports of relocation reportedly bring sad memories among the Tonga people who are still angry following their forced relocation from their lands in the 1950s from the banks of the Zambezi River where they used to reside.

Thousands of Tonga people in the Zambezi Valley were forcibly removed from their lands in the 1950s to pave the way for the Kariba Dam construction. The project was funded by the then Federal Power Board, now the World Bank.

Tonga people fear the government will abandon them after displacements as it was the case during the Kariba Dam construction.

They were promised fertile lands, homes and electricity once power generation started. To date, the Tonga, who identified strongly with the Zambezi River, calling themselves “Basilwizi”- the river People, are still living in darkness.

“It’s historical; relocation here is very sensitive. The majority have never been happy after they were removed from the Zambezi River banks. The government of the day did not meet its promises.”
Elias Sibanda, Binga District Residents Association (BIDRA) coordinator

However, the Matabeleland North Provincial Affairs minister claims the government has a relocation plan despite admitting that no alternative land to settle the affected villagers has been identified.

“We now have a provincial task force that has since directed the district task force to identify alternative land. They will be given compensation and 200 hectares per household,” Moyo says.

Moyo added that there is a budget for compensation, and evaluators will evaluate the compensation cost for each household. We are moving with speed to identify the land.”

The dam construction also includes a 245-kilometre-long water pipeline from Gwayi-Shangani to Bulawayo, which will see communities along the way benefiting through irrigation.

In a position paper on the “Development-Oriented Evictions and Displacements of Zimbabwe Ethnic, Linguistic and Indigenous Communities,” the Matabeleland Institute of Human Rights (MIHR), however, describes the planned relocations as inhumane and disrupting social, cultural and religious values and systems of Binga villagers among other human rights violations.

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“Relocations and displacements result in psychological trauma and stress to all the community members, loss of livelihoods, indigenous knowledge systems and adaptive capacities of the local indigenous and ethnic communities which in-turn worsens poverty and vulnerability…,” the position paper states.

The MIHR has urged the government to fully adopt and adhere to the United Nations Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-based Evictions and Displacement in its recommendations.

“The relevant Parliamentary Portfolio Committees should be mandated to visit the affected communities before and after relocations to ensure that appropriate policy and action measures are being taken to alleviate gross human rights violations,” the MIHR adds.

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