WCC FEATURE: Next to dam, no water access for Lesotho highlands communities

[WCC Media]

World Council of Churches - Feature
Contact: + 41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media at wcc-coe.org


For immediate release - 09/06/2008 14:15:22

IN THE SHADOW OF THE DAM, COMMUNITIES LONG FOR WATER

By Christian Johannessen (*)
[Free high resolution photo available, see below]

The massive dams built by South Africa and Lesotho in the
mountain kingdom's highlands have proven a success for the
economies of both countries. The Christian Council of Lesotho is
worried, however, that the residents displaced by the project are
bypassed when it comes to the benefits.

Malethibela Lits'esane (35) gazes up to the mountains
surrounding the village of Ha Makhalanyane in Lesotho, the
kingdom encompassed by mighty South Africa. She longs for the
life she once lived several miles beyond those mountains. Five
years have passed since she and her husband Emmanuel (36) were
forced from their village of Lamapong Ha Koporala. When the
Mohale dam was built, many of the people living in the
surrounding area were resettled to other locations. Two of them
were the Lits'esanes. 

Malethibela Lits'esane carries a jug that she uses to water the
small field where the couple grows food, where their sole cow
grazes and some chickens peck for food. The garden-sized patch
bears no comparison with the pastures by the Mohale dam, where
the livestock used to find food, and the people herbs and
firewood.

While the Lesotho Highlands Water Project raises millions of
dollars each month - much needed revenue for this relatively poor
country - it has hardly benefited the people who had to make way
for the dams. 

Running water - six months a year

During the rainy season, Malethibela can fill up her jug from a
tap placed between the cluster of houses which make up her
neighbourhood. From the end of July till January her everyday
life changes. Drought comes creeping in, and the community tap
runs dry. 

Malethibela then has to walk for four to five hours to bring
water back home. She will carry 20-40 litres of water on her
head, having no chance of bringing back the 30-50 litres per
person which the United Nations World Water Assessment Programme
(
http://www.unesco.org/water/wwap/facts_figures/basic_needs.shtml
)considers the daily minimum. During the drought it is impossible
for the Lits'esanes and their neighbours to grow any vegetables,
and they have to take the cattle to far-away grazing areas. This
is far from what they were promised when they were told they had
to resettle.

In the 80-household village of Ha Mallani, situated on the
hillside above the Katse dam, people are still waiting for the
water tap they had been promised. Over ten years after the dam
was completed they still have to rely on a few natural,
unprotected springs. Above one of them, the construction company
has even placed two toilets threatening to leak into the spring.
Just one kilometre below lies the Katse reservoir, with water
that the villagers are not allowed to access, covering their
former fields.

One visible benefit of the water development project for the
people of the Katse region catches the eye of travellers: almost
every single one of the traditional round houses with straw
roofing now has a concrete toilet next to it. Inhabitants say
that health has improved, especially for children, after these
toilets were built. The reason why these toilets were quickly
installed in the region was to ensure that the water quality of
the reservoir maintained a high standard. 

Prophetic role of the church

The same year that South Africa and Lesotho signed the treaty on
the binational water project, the Christian Council of Lesotho
became active on behalf of the affected people. In 1986, it
initiated the Church Highlands Action Group in order to empower
the communities in advocacy skills regarding resettlement and
compensation issues. The group had to end its work for lack of
funding in 1999, but the council is now picking it up again.

"The church should play its prophetic role, and go directly to
the affected communities. We look at development from a holistic
point of view. Development needs to be physical, mental and
moral. This is our calling. There are still people who are not
properly compensated for their losses, and we are going to engage
the authorities through advocacy work, "says Seeisa Mokitimi,
coordinator of the council's Poverty Eradication Programme.

In April, the Christian Council of Lesotho co-hosted an
international conference of the Ecumenical Water Network, which
discussed mega-dam projects in relation to the human right to
water. 

Even though the treaty on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project
established the principle that no person should be worse off
because of the dams, Tom Monaheng Mahlakeng is not happy with the
way compensations are handled. 

"People need to get the right compensation, before the work
starts. We have seen people waiting for 20 years for the
compensation they were promised. The Lesotho Highlands
Development Authority needs to start listening to their own
treaty," said Mahlakeng, the chairman of a small organization
called Survivors of Lesotho Dams (SOLD), in an interview in
April. 

"The way they have treated us makes me bitter," he added. In
Mahlakeng's own village 173 houses were destroyed by explosions
in a quarry where building material for the Mohale dam roads was
extracted. Only 16 houses were rebuilt. 

Masilo Phakoe, chief executive of the authority responsible for
the Highlands Water Project, says that a reason for the problem
in compensations is that the construction firm that was to build
the toilets and the water supply in the Katse region failed to do
so despite the money given for the job. Phakoe affirms they now
will pick up the remaining work: "The process has been a bit
slow, we are about ten years late, but now there is a programme
to finish the work."

Malethibela Lits'esane looks at the house that the authorities
built for her when she was resettled. It is solid, made of
concrete, just like the toilet next it. But it is also very cold
during the nights, and there is no firewood to be found nearby.
In order to have fire to cook on, she needs to buy paraffin from
the money she makes by selling chickens. 

"We feel deceived by the authorities", she says. "We were
promised that everything we would get at the new place was of
high standards, but little has been given. Since we moved here,
life has been very stressful."

[1014 words]

(*) Christian Johannessen is a freelance journalist from Norway.



Ecumenical Water Network:
http://water.oikoumene.org

Christian Council of Lesotho:
http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4955

Free high resolution photo of Malethibela Lits'esane (©
Christian Johannessen/EWN):
http://oikoumene.org/fileadmin/images/wcc-main/news/2008/june/Malethibela_high.jpg

Photo gallery on dams in Lesotho:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=6004


[### SIDE BAR###]

Water politics: the mega-dam solution
During the last century more than 45,000 large dams have been
built all across the world in order to harness water resources
for food production, flood control, domestic use and energy
generation. The World Commission of Dams, established in 1998 to
review the development effectiveness of these vastly expensive
projects, came to the conclusion that many dams had failed to
achieve these goals, and that the impact on the affected
communities and ecosystems had been greater than predicted. 

Hailed as “project of the century” by the South African
Institute of Civil Engineering, the Lesotho Highlands Water
Project supplies South Africa with water and generates
electricity for Lesotho. It was initiated in 1986 by the two
countries' governments. Water is a scarce resource in South
Africa. In the mountainous Lesotho, whose lowest point is 1,400
meters above sea level, the average quantity of available water
exceeds national consumption by 75 times. 

Three of the five planned dams are already finished: the Katse
dam, the Muela dam and the Mohale dam. Water has been flowing to
South Africa for a decade now, and each month the government of
Lesotho receives 17 million maloti, or around 2.2 million U.S.
dollars, in royalties. 

According to the treaty governing the joint venture, the people
affected by the project should “be enabled to maintain a standard
of living not inferior to that obtained at the time of first
disturbance”. But the annual compensation paid to 3,500
households, supposedly for 50 years, is too low to generate new
sources of income, and it often arrives late. To date around 40
million maloti have been paid in compensation.

Masilo Phakoe, chief executive of the Lesotho Highlands
Development Authority, on the other hand, is convinced of the
dams' great benefits. The project has created jobs, enhanced
people's level of skills, upgraded the infrastructure and
generated large amounts of money for this relatively poor
country, he insisted. 

Surveys carried out by his authority showed the standard of
living, income and health conditions in the rural areas had
improved, Phakoe added. Still, he realized the scheme had a
downside, too: "We might not have done enough in preparation of
the people in the rural areas. Social and environmental issues
were not high in the debate in the 1980s when we started this
project. We still have work to do in order to help the affected
communities, but we are working on it."



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6363 media at wcc-coe.org