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dam-l Two dam articles/LS
The following two articles are on a new dam in Swaziland, and on Ghana
>
>
>>From the ANC Daily News Briefing:
>
>MANDELA ATTENDS CEREMONY FOR NEW SWAZI DAM
>JOHANNESBURG October 8 1998 Sapa
>
> President Nelson Mandela and Water Affairs and Forestry Minister
>Kader Asmal
> on Thursday attended the sod-turning ceremony for the Maguga dam at
>Piggs Peak
> in Swaziland.
>
> A statement from Asmal's department said the event was also attended by
> Swaziland's King Mswati II, government ministers, officials and
>local residents.
>
> The ceremony signified a milestone in the development of the Komati
>river's
> resources.
>
> Speaking at the ceremony, Mandela thanked the Swaziland government
>for looking
> after South Africans during the struggle. He particularly thanked
>the late King
> Sobhuza for opening his doors to South African exiles.
>
> Mswati thanked South Africa for its good cooperation. He said the
>joint venture
> would strenghten the relationship between the two countries.
>
> Asmal said there had been attempts to polarise the need for dams and
>water
> conservation. Both countries needed to ensure the security of supply
>that a dam
> like Maguga could offer.
>
> People living in and around Piggs Peak and areas near the Komati and in
> Mozambique, would enjoy a better life because of the benefits
>derived from such
> developments, he said.
>
> [ index by subject - length | newswire root ]
>
>source: gopher://gopher.anc.org.za/00/anc/newsbrief/1998/news1009
>processed Fri 9 Oct 1998 09:32 SAST.
>
>
>
>
> Wednesday, October 7, 1998 Published at 11:47 GMT 12:47 UK
>
>
> World: Africa
>
> Uganda: A ray of light in Africa
>
>
(NOTE: **see asterisks that highlight quote telling how dependence on
>Akosombo dam is hurting ugandan economy.)
>
> Uganda has gone from "basket case" to a role model for Africa
>
> By the BBC's International Business Correspondent, Peter
> Morgan, reports on some surprising evidence of economic
>hope to
> be found in Africa
>
> Every day before dawn on the far Western border of Uganda,
>hundreds of people begin their journey.
>
>
> But this is not another
>hopeless migration of hungry refugees of the kind
>you have seen so often on the television news.
>
> These are the workers of the
>Bugambe tea estates, and picking starts
>before the heat of the day.
>
> It is a quiet, picturesque sort
>of an industry, being developed in a
>region which, for almost 20 years, was
>simply so dangerous that the only
>living available here was the poorest kind of
>subsistence farming.
>
> Uganda has had the misfortune
>of being ruled by some of the nastiest
>tyrants to terrorise Africa.
>
> During the long years of misery
>under Idi Amin and Milton Obote, these tea estates were abandoned.
>
> But now a British company has judged the country safe
>enough to hack back the jungle, and re-cultivated these gentle hills,
>where every
>day now 5 tonnes of tea are picked by hand and exported for blends like PG
>Tips.
>
> In Uganda, here in the very heart of Africa, years of
>despotism, starvation and misery are making way for a new age of peace,
>stability
>and even some kind of prosperity.
>
> Basic conditions
>
> There are a number of conditions, which have to exist for
>any economy to prosper. Principal among them are peace and stability.
> Upon this essential foundation stone a government must establish the
>rule of law. It must embark upon economic policies, which will regulate
>prices, exchange rates and trade. It
>must take on the corrupt and the crooked.
>
> Tragically, in Africa, there
>are still too many examples of countries
>where few or none of these conditions exist. But Uganda taken tremendous
>strides
>in the right direction, and for the
>past 12 years President Yoweri Musevini has
>introduced peace to Uganda.
>
> He has also moved closer to
>democratic government than Uganda has ever
>been, and he has followed the
>instructions of the IMF and the World Bank so
>assiduously that Uganda has become the
>first nation to
> be granted debt relief under a complex scheme whereby
>developing countries, which show sufficient determination to reform their
>economies, will be forgiven slices of their debt to the rich Western nations.
>
> And go to Kampala to see the difference. The capital is
>buzzing with traders
> selling Walkmans and TVs, while the new emerging middle
>class are sporting
> their designer clothes and fashionable shades.
And Uganda is not an isolated example of economic hope in sub-Saharan Africa.
>
> Ghana is another African
>country with a hideously bloody history, followed by a recent spectacular
>recovery.
>
> Ghana lies on what the early
>European explorers named the Gold Coast. Quite apart from its huge gold
>deposits, Ghana
> has diamonds and more than its
>fair share
> of many more of the world's most
> precious minerals.
>
> So too has its near neighbour
>Sierra
> Leone. The difference between
>the two could not be more striking. While Sierra Leone stumbles from
>crisis to crisis, Ghana is achieving rates of growth that most European
>countries would envy.
>
> The skyline of the capital Accra is bristling with new
>development. The President, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings, is seriously
>talking about eliminating absolute poverty in his country by the year 2020.
>
> This has been made possible by the unique decision of
>Jerry Rawlings, who seized power in a military coup in 1981, to introduce a
>constitutional democracy some 12 years later.
>
> His office is now legitimised by popular mandate, and at
>the end of his second term in the year 2000, the constitution decrees that he
>will have to stand down.
>
> Negative areas
Sadly, it is still absurd to talk about an economic
>revival across sub-Saharan Africa, where many millions of people are still
>quite
>literally starving, where tyranny is still widespread, and where Aids
>continues to
>ravage the population.
>
> It is also important not to be hijacked by the IMF
>officials and aid workers who are desperate to have an African success
>story to tell to
>combat the world's cynicism and compassion fatigue about the Dark Continent.
>
>
> Let it go on the record that
>in Uganda,
> tales of corruption are too
>widespread and
> consistent to ignore. While
>Uganda's
> unique "movement system",
>which allows
> anyone to stand for parliament but
> outlaws political parties, attracts
> widespread criticism as being
> fundamentally undemocratic.
> Ghana's economic growth has been
> severely restricted this year
>by a power
> crisis, which has plunged
>large areas of
> the country into darkness for large
> portions of the day.
>
> It is because the country has
>become
> totally reliant on the
>hydro-electric output
> of the Akosombo dam. When the rains
> fail, and the level of the
>River Volta falls
> (which has happened with a
>vengeance
> this year), it has left the
>whole of Ghana's
> economy looking shockingly vulnerable.
> Even so Sam Jonah, the Chief Executive of Ashanti
>Goldfields, the country's biggest private company, not only enthuses about the
>prospects for Ghana's economy. He is convinced that Ghana with is
>constitutional
>democracy and free trade polices is providing a blue print for the rest
>of Africa.
>
> "A wind of change is blowing through this continent," he
>says, echoing the words of Harold Macmillan half a century ago.
>
> Uganda and Ghana are not flawless examples of what free
>market democracies can achieve.
>
> But when you look where they started, and when you see
>what they have achieved, you feel armed with enough evidence to challenge
>the widespread bar room opinion that sub-Saharan Africa is a "basket case" of
>which we might as well, here and now, despair.
>
>
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>
> ©
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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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