Lesotho and South Africa Aim for Third Water Project Dam
Date: 23-Sep-05
Country: LESOTHO
Author: Ntsau Lekhetho
Hundreds of residents lost their homes and their land when the Katse and Mohale dams were built for the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, which supplies water to South Africa's commercial heartland around Johannesburg.
"This time around there will be complete consultations with the affected communities," chief project delegate Sixtus Tohlang said. "We want full participation of everybody. The resettlement procedures will be reviewed."
A feasibility study will take two years, after which officials say it will most likely take another two years to build the Mashai dam. But some say they have yet to receive compensation for the land they lost to the first two dams.
On Wednesday, hundreds of protestors marched through Maseru to hand a memorandum of grievances to the joint Lesotho-South African commission on the project. They say compensation packages have been paid late or not at all.
Each resettled family receives between 800 ($126) and 2,000 rand ($314) a year, and some say they have had to withdraw children from school as they are unable to feed themselves. Some say they no longer have land on which to bury their dead.
"This money is hopelessly low," the protestors said in the memorandum. "We want compensation to take into account... (what) we had before we were resettled. With the produce of our fields, we were able to send our children to school and feed ourselves."
Lesotho is battling chronic food shortages, an HIV infection rate of around 30 percent and job losses in its textile sector and among expatriate workers in South African mines.
Both Lesotho and South Africa say the project is aimed at boosting employment and helping the smaller country move towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals, which set targets for health, education and development.
"This is a co-operation between the two countries' mutual benefits," South African water affairs and forestry minister Buyelwa Sonjinca said.
Construction of the first two dams was said to be dogged by corruption, and the scheme's former chief executive Masupha Sole is currently serving a 15 year graft conviction. Lesotho says this time, it will be more vigilant.
"We have learnt our lessons and we will be very vigilant to the procurement and tendering process," Lesotho's minister of natural resources, Mamphono Khaketla, told reporters.
