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dam-l Ghana dam breaks, Kenya energy rationing/LS
>Cholera kills 48 after north
>Ghana flooding
>08:01 a.m. Sep 14, 1999 Eastern
>
>ACCRA, Sept 14 (Reuters) - At least 48
>people have died from an outbreak of
>cholera in northern Ghana following
>torrential rains and flooding which made
>some 9,000 people homeless, the Ghana
>News Agency reported.
>
>It said on Monday night that the rains last
>week had destroyed food crops and swept
>away hamlets, roads and bridges in the
>impoverished Upper East and Northern
>regions.
>
>Three main roads were impassable, while
>three dams and a bridge had collapsed, it
>said.
>
>Unusually heavy rainfall in neighbouring
>Burkina Faso, whose swollen Red and
>White Volta rivers drain into Ghana's
>Volta river, has aggravated the situation
>after Burkina Faso had to open the
>spillways of the Bagre Dam in the White
>Volta River.
>
>
>Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
>
>******************************
>
>Power rationing hurts
>ailing Kenyan industry
>08:17 a.m. Sep 08, 1999 Eastern
>
>By Adrian Blomfield
>
>NAIROBI, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Kenyan
>industry leaders warn a new electricity
>rationing programme could plunge the
>country's ailing manufacturing sector
>into crisis, and accuse the nation's
>power utilities of ineptitude.
>
>They say job losses, falling profits and
>even bankruptcies could result from
>the rationing which power suppliers
>blame on a recent drought.
>
>``We are in the middle of a deep
>depression in the manufacturing sector
>and this is putting the last nail in the
>coffin of our chances of survival,''
>Chris Kirubi, chairman of the Kenya
>Association of Manufacturers, told
>Reuters.
>
>State power utility Kenya Power and
>Lighting Company (KPLC)
>
>began rationing power to industrial and
>domestic consumers last Thursday,
>cutting supplies to all customers for
>five or six hours every other day for
>six months.
>
>``The cost of all the combined effects
>resulting from this could wipe out
>everything we have worked so hard
>for over the last 25 years,'' said
>Michael Matu, managing director of
>Dunlop East Africa.
>
>KPLC said most major hospitals had
>been given priority for continuous
>power supply but all essential services
>could expect some disruption.
>
>In a country where economic growth
>rates have fallen for three years
>running, manufacturers said they were
>already feeling the pinch only days
>after rationing began.
>
>Jeremy Pike, managing director of
>British American Tobacco in Nairobi,
>said the cost of installing a generator at
>one of its main processing plants could
>be as high as 100 million shillings
>($1.3 million) and warned the
>consequences could be devastating.
>
>``We would try not to, but we are here
>to make a profit and so ultimately we
>would have to pass on the cost to the
>consumer,'' he said.
>
>A senior executive at one of Kenya's
>biggest companies said he had already
>drawn up contingency plans to cut
>production staff at a major factory
>from 85 to just 12.
>
>Many industry leaders said the
>situation could have been avoided with
>a bit of forward planning by the power
>sector.
>
>``If they dredged reservoir dams that
>have silted up or spent time
>maintaining old power stations instead
>of letting them go to ruin or even
>source power from Uganda, we would
>not be in this mess,'' Kirubi said.
>
>But KPLC and KenGen, the
>state-owned generating firm created in
>1997 which provides 80 percent of
>Kenya's power, said the crisis was the
>result of drought and record low water
>levels curtailing output from Kenya's
>mainly hydro-electric power plants.
>
>They said efforts had been made to
>pool energy sources in the East African
>region but Uganda had little spare
>capacity and supplied just 10
>megawatts to Kenya each year.
>
>Kenya itself produces 676.5
>megawatts annually, leaving some 75
>megawatts of unmet demand, partly
>the result of a sharp drop in foreign aid
>to the energy sector.
>
>No new power capacity was brought
>on stream in Kenya between the
>building of the Turkwell dam in 1986
>and the arrival of two independent
>power producers, Westmont Kenya
>and IberAfrica -- who supply the
>remaining 20 percent of KPLC's
>power -- as part of liberalisation efforts
>in 1997.
>
>While the accusations fly, KPLC says
>there may be light at the end of the
>tunnel. By 2002, 503 megawatts of
>additional capacity would have been
>commissioned and for the first time
>power supply could outstrip demand,
>which is growing at a rate of 6.6
>percent a year.
>
>
>Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
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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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