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dam-l SA Opposition to Lesotho Dam/LS
The following article is from South Africa's weekly Mail and Guardian
newspaper, April 30-May 7
>"Damn dams, look in your own backyard"
>
> Alexandra residents take the World Bank to task over
> plans to expand the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
>
>We are a group of low-income residents of Alexandra. Last week
>we filed a formal protest at the World Bank Inspection Panel --
>the equivalent of its auditor general -- against the expansion
>of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP).
> The reason is that the next dam -- Mohale, the proposed R6,7
>billion dam known as Phase 1B -- will cost Gauteng residents too
>much money and prevent us from engaging in urgently-needed water
>conservation. World Bank executive directors were scheduled to
>vote this week on a $50 million loan for the project.
> It is regrettable that our identity must remain secret. The
>reason is intimidation experienced by LHWP opponents. Community
>leaders from Soweto and Alexandra have withdrawn their original
>Panel Claim, leaving ordinary residents to file anonymously.
> World Bank staff have responded inadequately to our
>concerns. Last month they filed a report advising against a
>delay, making the assumption of at least a 3,3% annual water
>demand increase in Gauteng. In contrast, an official of Rand
>Water has been quoted saying that 40% reductions are possible,
>leading to a long delay in the Mohale dam -- perhaps 20 years --
>with a savings of R800 million per year.
> With such great sums at stake, calculations must be
>scientific. In the mid-1980s, when the LHWP got off the ground,
>the bank estimated 40% higher water demand than actually
>occurred, its new report admits.
> The bank's report still downplays the urgent need to rectify
>the existing maldistribution of water resources. By consuming
>less than 2% of all South Africa's water, black township
>residents together drink up less than a third of the amount used
>in middle- and upper-income swimming pools and gardens, not to
>mention the massive waste by farmers who have had enormous
>irrigation subsidies over the years and who use 50% of South
>Africa's water.
> In the wake of January's embarrassment when the initial wave
>of Lesotho water had to be turned back because the Vaal system
>was already overflowing, there remains intense debate over
>whether Water Minister Kader Asmal's alternative options should
>not, perhaps, first be given a chance to work.
> The simple question is: if our society decides it can and
>must conserve water, at the same time meeting all our citizens'
>most basic needs regardless of ability to pay, do we need this
>dam?
> The bank says we must proceed, but in a manner we are
>convinced is hasty, ill-informed and lacking in South African
>values. Given the bank's previous dismal record on this dam and
>other large projects, and given that studies of conservation and
>other demand side measures are still many months from
>completion, the loan decision should be delayed.
> We are requesting that the inspection panel slow down the
>process and do more careful research, in a manner consistent
>with our society's commitment to transformation. Bank staff have
>to be taught to take community views seriously, and carry out
>studies on basic household needs and demand management, instead
>of rushing ahead with a costly megaproject.
> How expensive is the Mohale dam water? If Asmal's department
>and Rand Water must pay off R6,7 billion in capital costs, the
>price of each new drop of water we drink in Gauteng increases by
>obscene amounts.
> According to the World Bank itself, a cubic meter of water
>from the Vaal Dam costs 8 cents, from Bloemhom 10 cents, from
>Tugela Vaal 21 cents, and from the combination of Lesotho's
>Katse (complete) and Mohale (the proposed dam), a staggering
>R1,50. The bank tells Asmal that it would be "economically
>appropriate" to raise the price of raw Vaal water from 30 cents
>to R1,50 per cubic meter.
> Unfortunately, Katse is water under the bridge. The three
>other projects provide Gauteng with 2,3 billion cubic meters a
>year, while the two Lesotho dams together would add just another
>billion. Surely we can find ways to cut back so as to avoid
>Mohale for some years?
> As the bank task manager himself admitted in an internal
>memo last October, "All of this shows that if demand management
>had been on the table in 1986 at the time of the treaty
>negotiation, and if the commitment to [Phase] 1B had not been
>made on the terms that it was -- then the whole story would be
>different. Lesson: push the demand management stuff."
> But now, just before a major lending decision is made, and
>without further studies on demand management, the same bank
>staffer says the opposite: push the loan.
> What is most disturbing is that the bank did its initial
>calculations hand-in-hand with apartheid-era bureaucrats. The
>bureaucrats and bank experts never thought to look into how much
>water is needlessly wasted, through no fault of ours, in Alex
>and other Gauteng townships.
> We remain furious that apartheid-era infrastructure has not
>been fixed, and that out of every 100 drops that flow through
>Gauteng pipes 24 quickly leak into the ground through faulty
>bulk infrastructure (half of Soweto's water leaks out). There
>are still more drops falling from leaky communal and house taps.
>Visit the higher elevations of Alex, witness the perpetual lack
>of water pressure, and you will understand the scope of the
>problem.
> Civic associations across Gauteng are taking advantage of
>any and all programmes to fix the mess. But like all township
>development, this process has only just begun and the amount of
>money committed is a tiny fraction of that needed.
> Asmal seems to favour a sensible pro-conservation approach
>that also ensures we have a lifeline supply, although the cost
>of water to millions of impoverished township residents is still
>too high. But here is the dilemma. If the bank loan, other
>offshore finance and local funding from taxpayers and the
>Development Bank of Southern Africa are finalised, the first
>casualty of higher costs is government's dual commitment to
>conserve water and to provide lifeline supplies. It is obvious
>that with Rand Water requiring much greater consumption to mop
>up the flood of new water and to pay the huge forthcoming costs
>of Mohale, any incentive to conserve and to address basic equity
>will tend to evaporate.
> The forthcoming Rand Water price increases -- which were
>more than 50% above the inflation rate, because 75% of the
>increase is from the LHWP -- will hit us at a time unemployment
>is increasing, overall municipal bills are being increased and
>some white ratepayers (our Sandton neighbours) are offering
>stiff resistance to paying their fair share.
>
>Township residents are despondent that today, four years after
>our first democratic government was elected, we must still
>complain about the lack of change, the filth, the health hazards
>and the hygiene problems caused by inadequate water.
> When Soweto civic members staged a protest march on Southern
>Johannesburg council in 1996, they were told that there was
>nothing that could be done about huge tariff increases, because
>these were the result of the first big Lesotho dam.
> Both with respect to conservation and access to basic
>supply, our communities depart from the Washington advisors.
> Bank staff have firmly opposed giving all South African
>citizens our universal, constitutionally-guaranteed entitlement
>to water, preferring instead an administratively complex "means
>test." They insist on a "credible threat of cutting service," as
>if this was not a public health and personal safety risk. They
>oppose a lifeline tariff and rising block tariffs, because
>municipal privatisation "will be much harder to establish."
> Bank staff also tell Asmal to be "very careful about
>irrigation for `previously disadvantaged'" South Africans and
>that instead the "key lies in voluntary solutions -- trading
>water rights" as if emergent black farmers have a hope of
>competing financially with subsidised white commercial
>enterprises.
> For the bank, the last resort is the threat of a drought.
>This we take seriously, but we have yet to be convinced that
>high-profile conservation and redistribution techniques -- that
>can save more than a third of all water now consumed -- won't
>reduce the need for water restrictions.
> So to the bank, we residents of Alexandra -- and many other
>Gauteng consumers -- say, thanks for the advice and the offer of
>loans, but no thanks!
>
>***
>
>The authors are residents of Alexandra township whose identity
>is known to the Mail and Guardian.
>
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
http://www.irn.org
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