Lesotho dam project: taking from the poor to benefit the rich?

Our Government (America's Government) has quite possibly the WORST record of doing this kind of shit.

This country has set the standard. Truely disgusting.

It's unbelievable that gov'ts can operate like this - taking full advantage of defenseless people & then profiting from the area's resources & calling it progress. On second thought, I guess I do live under one of those gov'ts.

Yes, and watch the documentary "Flow." This is not just an isolated situation.

Sacrafice a few for the sake of all? .... How utilitarian.

I suggest that you read "Blue Gold" to understand how water is becoming a commodity for those who can afford it rather than a given right to all.

Gee guys, get a life and get some facts.

The Lesotho dams don't take water from anyone - the water flows down the Orange river to South Africa and the sea and there is not nearly enough land or enough people in Lesotho to use more than a small fraction of it.

There is just a handful of people in the high mountains of Lesotho - only 2000 people were displaced by the first dams and the majority are resettled with substantial compensation.

Payment for the use of its land to transfer water from one side of the mountains to the other has given Lesotho (one of the porest countries in the world) hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on its people. It covers most of the health and education budgets.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, probably 15 million people have jobs and enough water to drink because of the Lesotho water.

What's wrong with that? They must starve so that you can feel good?

And that's how the game goes, the rich will always benefit no matter the social and environmental costs.

thats just screwed up. how would they like it if someone took their water supply.

sad

The power of the economy's greed has left a trail of blood and tears that will never be forgotten..

Yes, greed is so rampant in this world that governments are betraying their own people and destroying their traditions for it. It will most assuredly be our undoing. In the video posted, what else did these people have but their river and their farming? I find it to be totally inhumane to take the water from this river to send it to Johannesberg where they already have water but refuse to conserve it, just to make more money from it.

The World Bank then claims there is a "food crisis" in these areas and sends Monsanto in with their GM crap seeds. The World Bank is an evil organization. Now Lesotho is just another country in hock to them and the Asian companies that now own their manufacturing plants where they make cheap goods that are shipped to the US.

Clean potable Water will become a major issue world wide. Even in the last twenty years the crises continues. It won't go away. The warnings have been made and the World Bank goes on in its War against the Earth. Financing Projects in underdeveloped Nations that Rape the Environment. It is a Tragedy that Money overrules the good Sense to protect, conserve, and Educate. You rape what You can, when it's over, find something else until it too is gone. Tragic.

Corruption in Lesotho Highlands Water Project

Excerpt:

"In a recent trial in Lesotho, the Court found the chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands Development Agency (LHDA) guilty of accepting brides from multinationals to secure tenders in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). The court has subsequently brought various multinationals to court for their part in the bribery. Lesotho is a small, mountainous country, poorly endowed with natural resources, except for water. Since the 1950’s there has developed a strategy to export Lesotho ’s water to neighbouring South Africa. The manifestation of these plans has resulted in a massive construction of dams and channels known as the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, involving an estimated US$8 billion. The Project promises huge royalties from water sales as well as from hydroelectric power. The Project also promises the development of the rural areas of Lesotho and compensation for those who have been displaced and otherwise affected by the dams.

However, in most past cases, the construction of large dams has been controversial; greater then expected costs, poor bottom-line returns, non-deliverance of promises of benefits to the people, as well as high environmental damage and disruption of displaced people’s lives. The business of Big Dam construction has in the past been wracked by corruption, bribery and a lack of transparency in the tender-process. Corruption and bribery distorts the tendering process and may substantially increase the cost of the dam to the host country and its backers. In the High Court of Lesotho, key players in the LHWP have been accused of taking part in bribe-payments made by bidding companies to Mr Ephraim Sole, Chief Executive of the LHDA. Through an extensive, international network of bank accounts and ‘agents’, bribes have been paid to Mr Sole, who was able to materially influence the tendering procedure and outcome through his unchecked power as CE of the LHDA. Sole was accused of accepting more than $6 million in bribes from multinationals. Sole has been convicted and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

Sole’s conviction and the strong and independent stance taken by the court against a senior government official is a good showing of a commitment to the rule of law and of tackling corruption by the Lesotho Government. However, even more significant is the subsequent trials of the bribe-paying multinationals. Acres International (Canada) and Lahmeyer International (Germany) and Spie Batigonells / Schneider Electric (France) have been tried and convicted of bribery and inflating the costs of the LHWP. Cases against a further three multinationals are still pending. This is a significant move in international business in which multinationals from developed countries could largely evade prosecution for wrong-doings in developing countries. The home countries of these firms actively support and promote these multinationals through export-credit agencies to conduct business in developing countries. It can be argued that bribery too often forms part of the business of multinationals’ foreign operations with government officials. In many cases, these multinationals escape liability as home governments turn a blind-eye to their operations- despite new laws such as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention which is meant to police this form of conduct. This case also has significant due to the World Bank’s involvement in the funding of the LHWP. The World Bank has been criticized for showing reluctance to blacklist the convicted firms from further contracts in which The Bank is involved."

Testimonies of those displaced.

Dammit!

Excerpt from article:

South Africa has approved the second phase of a multi-billion dollar water project in landlocked Lesotho to ensure a secure future water supply in its industrial hub, the water minister said Thursday.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, one of the world's largest infrastructure projects under construction, is an intricate network of tunnels and dams diverting water from Lesotho's mountains to South Africa.

"This project ... will at a projected cost of 7.3 billion rand (710 million US dollars/560 million euros) include construction of the Polihali Dam in Lesotho," Water Minister Lindiwe Hendricks told journalists in Cape Town.

Hendricks said the project was a strategic intervention to ensure the water security of the country's richest province Gauteng, which is expected to increase its water requirements by more than 30 percent in the next 20 years.

The project would augment the Vaal River System, which supplies water to 60 percent of the country's economy. According to Hendricks the second phase of the project was chosen as an augmentation method as water could be transferred to South Africa under gravity without pumping, and was the least energy intensive option.

The first phases of the project which was first conceived in 1954, included phase 1A, which began in 1984 and began delivering water in 1998, and phase 1B which began in 1998 and was inaugurated in 2004.

While the project delivered kilometres of tarred roads and power lines and provided thousands of jobs in the largely rural tiny mountain kingdom, it came under fire from civic groups for displacing up to 20,000 people.

Critics argued the project changed once remote mountain communities by introducing AIDS, alcoholism and prostitution, and caused the loss of farming and grazing land.

The project also resulted in convictions of some of the world's largest engineering firms, after massive corruption was uncovered in 1999. More than 12 multinational firms and consortiums were found to have bribed the chief executive of the project, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence.