By Sukuoluhle Ndhlovu
Chivi – The Minister of State for Masvingo Provincial affairs, Ezra Chadzamira has said Masvingo Councils should focus much on bigger projects with the devolution funds.
The Minister said this yesterday at a tour of the Chombwe Irrigation Scheme in Chivi.
Chombwe Irrigation Scheme is being resuscitated after it ceased operations in 2002 after donor withdrew funds.
The government together with the Chivi RDC is working hand in hand to make sure the scheme is resuscitated for the benefit of the lives of those in North and Central Chivi districts.
He urged councils to have their residents at heart.
“Devolution funds must focus on bigger projects and not focus on projects that will remain incomplete.
Projects do should focus on the betterment of lives of the people as this project will see more than a hundred thousand people benefitting and this means this is the biggest project so far here in Masvingo. l encourage other councils to do tangible projects. Chivi RDC saw that this project will benefit a lot of people hence they chose to put much effort into it.
“The devolution funds are now yielding results as it is now helping from the grassroots level. Other councils in the province should follow suit and continue doing like what Chivi is doing and deal with projects like these ones which will benefit the people from grassroots level,” he said.
CEO of Chivi RDC, Tariro Matavire said that they budgeted ZWL$6milliion for the project and so far they have used ZWL$3.4million.
“This is our number one project we have done with the devolution funds which we were given by the government.
The resuscitation of the project will see many livelihoods benefiting in the two wards and two constituencies, ward 6, 7 and 8 of Chivi North and ward 11 and 30 in Chivi Central.
“We are almost done with the project and the water we are going to pump will be raw as the water will be used for different purposes. The scheme was affected by cyclones and the withdrawal of donor funds affected the scheme,” said Matavire.
The project will see part of Chivi North and Central constituencies having water.
Talking to one of the residents in Chivi North identified as Senzeli Sango, she said the irrigation scheme was long overdue as water is the biggest challenge in this constituency and we thanked the council for hearing their concerns.
“We had to travel a long distance to get water from other wards. So we hope the council will come with a way that will help the scheme to continue functioning as we cannot continue relying on the government,” she said.
