South Africa and Zimbabwe are discussing an R8.2 billion dam project to supply water to an industrial hub near their border, according to documents seen by Bloomberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proposed Thuli Moswa dam, to be built in Thuli in Zimbabwe, would have a storage capacity of about 430 million cubic metres and could supply as much as 90 million cubic meters of water to the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone in South Africa\u2019s Limpopo province, according to the documents.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSouth Africa and Zimbabwe are still in discussion on the proposed joint study to assess the feasibility of building dams in Zimbabwe and transferring water to Limpopo province as a long-term plan,\u201d Wisane Mavasa, a spokesperson for South Africa\u2019s Water Department, said in an emailed response to Bloomberg. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chronic water shortages, rising industrial demand and climate risks are turning water infrastructure into an urgent investment priority for South Africa. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Policymakers and financiers are pursuing dams, desalination plants and bulk-transfer projects to secure supplies needed to support economic growth, though large cross-border projects could take years to reach construction as governments wrestle with financing structures, water pricing and how to share costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A spokesperson for the Musina-Makhado Special Economic Zone, which is set to host energy-intensive industries including metals processing and manufacturing, said they could not comment, \u201cat this stage.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Obert Jiri, secretary in Zimbabwe\u2019s Agriculture Ministry, said there\u2019s no timeline for the project to begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If agreed, the project would enter an 18-month preparation phase, followed by about three years of construction, according to the documents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa would pay for the water under an agreement lasting between five and 35 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The development would be one of the largest cross-border water projects involving South Africa since the decades-old Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which supplies the country\u2019s industrial heartland. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the arrangement, the kingdom delivers about 780 million cubic metres of water annually and earns about 4.2 billion maloti ($257 million) in royalties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa and Zimbabwe are in discussions about an R8.2 billion dam project to supply water to areas of Limpopo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":839628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2104479737267491286","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2219240558896343","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18141787201599358","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[18829,26631,26630],"class_list":["post-877112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-limpopo","tag-musina-makhado","tag-thuli-moswa-dam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877112"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877143,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877112\/revisions\/877143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}