FOR nearly two decades, 19 years to be more precise, Binga residents have waited for the completion of one of the community’s biggest life-changing projects, the Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme.

The scheme is part of the government’s Zambezi Green Valley 15 000-hectare project meant to create a greenbelt along the Zambezi River stretching from Kazungula to Kariba.

We are told that the company, which was contracted to do the project, has stopped working countless times owing to payment delays by Treasury. This begs the question: Is the government serious about developing Binga, which has for millennia become synonymous with underdevelopment?

Yet many a times we have seen government officials, from the highest office in the land, travelling to the downtrodden region promising heaven on earth to the people of Binga.

Late last month, President Emmerson Mnangagwa was in Binga commissioning the Muchesu Coal Mine project, a massive British investment touted to create many job opportunities for locals.

While this was obviously a most welcome development for the people of Binga, many remain perplexed why earlier projects such as the Bulawayo irrigation scheme are taking forever to take shape, yet they speak to the immediate livelihoods of the people of the district.

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Muchesu will undoubtedly be a source of income to those who will be fortunate enough to be employed there, but the Bulawayo irrigation project will touch the lives of the entire district, including those who will be employed at Muchesu.

So, logically, the government should be placing the irrigation scheme way up its to-do list for Binga. The irrigation project will not only help to feed the drought-prone district, but will also supply food to much of Matabeleland North province and beyond.

So it boggles the mind why the government is eager to fast-track other projects ahead of the irrigation scheme which was mooted ages ago? Honestly speaking, taking 20 years to complete a project is absurd, to say the least.

The irrigation project contractor rightly points out that: “It’s unfortunate there have been a lot of delays.”

We, therefore, challenge the government to walk the talk as far as the irrigation scheme is concerned because it speaks volumes about commitment to developing Binga.

As far as we are concerned, all the projects being implemented ahead of the life-changing irrigation scheme are sideshows which we believe are meant to disguise the government’s failure to fulfil its promises to the people of Binga.

The people of Binga deserve an explanation they are being made to celebrate new projects while being denied the benefits emanating from Lake Kariba water which is supposed to irrigate their land to feed the district.

Ironically the people of Binga were displaced from their original homes to make way for the lake, but the government is taking donkey years to establish a scheme that will see them greatly benefit from their displacement.

We will only celebrate all these other so-called mega projects in Binga once the Bulawayo Kraal Irrigation Scheme comes on stream.