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dam-l Swazi dam contract awarded
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Bi-national consortium awarded dam contract
August 19, 1998
By Sizwe samaYende
KOMATIPOORT - A bi-national consortium of construction companies led by
Grinaker and Wilson Bayley Homes has
won the R342,4-million contract to construct the Magugu Dam in Swaziland,
African Eye News Service reports.
Magugu is the second of seven planned dams on the Komati and Lomati rivers
in Swaziland and Mpumalanga currently
being built by the Komati Basin Water Authority (Kobwa).
Announcing the award on Wednesday, Kobwa chief executive, Robin Clanahan,
told African Eye News Service that
Komati Dam Joint Venture (KDJV) won the contract in the face of stiff
competition from a series of other South African and
offshore consortia.
KDJV is made up of Grinaker, Wilson Bayley Homes, Group 5, LTA and the
Swaziland Contractor's Association (SCA).
SCA has been guaranteed a minimum 10% component of the contract, under the
co-ordination of Daniel Dlamini and
Robert Sackey.
"This overall project in a showpiece of bi-national co-operation between
South Africa and Swaziland and the new contract
will create roughly 400 jobs for the local Nkomazi community," Clanahan said.
"The bulk of the workforce will be recruited from local communities for the
actual construction of the dam and the building
of houses and access roads." Stressing that the construction programme was
very tight, with plans to begin filling the
dam by November 2000, Clanahan said that Kobwa hoped to store significant
water during the 2001 wet season and
would begin regulating water to downstream farmers and other agriculture
later in the same year.
"Small-scale and commercial farmers in the Nkomazi area are presently
subjected to water restrictions as they can only
get irrigation water from the Driekoppies Dam," Clanahan said.
"The completion of the Maguga Dam will therefore be a major boost to the
farmers with water problems," added
Clanahan.
Construction on river diversion tunnels will begin this most to allow
construction teams access to the riverbed by April
next year.
Construction on the 1042ha dam itself will begin in April, with all minor
works scheduled to be completed by the middle
of 2001.
The dam wall will consist of a rockfill embankment with a clay core and
will stand some 107-metres high.
It will contain 2,9-million cubic metres of rock and 0,8-million cubic
metres of clay.
The dam will be designed to pass 7800 cubic metres of water per second but
will be able to handle up to 15000 cubic
metres of water per second during flood conditions.
Clanahan said the project was being jointly funded by the Development Bank
of Southern Africa (DBSA), the Swaziland
Public Services Pension Fund and direct contributions from the two
country's governments.
Copyright © 1998 African Eye News Service. Distributed via Africa News
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Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
and Editor, World Rivers Review
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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