Tugwi Mukosi dam construction: consequences to affected local communities in Zimbabwe

Abstract

The inquiry focused on Tugwi Mukosi dam project displacements and relocations. The project was meant to support sugar cane projects in Chiredzi and Triangle. Unlike several other studies on the project, the current one focused on lived experiences of communities which remained as part of them was resettled at Chingwizi in Mwenezi district. The study interviewed community leaders, women, youths, government officials and business taking advantage of Tugwi Mukosi development meetings which were being held at the dam site. The studyestablished that planning and construction of the Tugwi Mukosi dam project was not consultative enough resulting in avoidable social and economic wounds in the affected area. Some of the losses to the remaining communities is alienation of the people from their inheritance such shrines, freedom of the mighty Tugwi and Mukosi rivers, alienation fromthe fishes in the rivers and from indigenous fruit trees which grew along the rivers. They also experience social dislocation from relatives who were moved to Chingwizi. Adequate compensation of the affected communities was recommended to enable the remaining communities to put a closure to the pain associated with the relocation.