Lesotho Water Project / Press Releases

Environmental campaigners welcomed yesterday’s decision by the World Bank to debar German-based Lahmeyer International for bribing officials to win contracts for Africa’s largest inter-basin water transfer scheme, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP).

As the world’s financial leaders gather in Washington for the annual meetings of the World Bank (Sept. 24–25), help for Africa will be high on the agenda. But the Bank’s biggest dam project in Africa, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP)¹ – sold as a way of pulling Lesotho out of poverty while supplying water to South Africa – is, according to the Bank itself, failing those who sacrificed everything for the project. Poverty is increasing in communities directly affected by the scheme’s dams, and project–affected people are resorting to marching in the streets of Lesotho’s capital to call attention to their plight.

Police Confiscate Documents Belonging to LHWP Critic

 

Maseru: Three agents of Lesothos National Security Service (NSS) have repeatedly harassed Mr. Benedict Leuta in recent months. Leuta is a resident of the Lesotho Highlands who lost land to the recently constructed Katse Dam. On their first visit to him on 19 November, the NSS seized documents from Leutas home in the village of Ha Nkokana (Thaba–Tseka District). Leuta had just returned from a meeting in Cape Town sponsored by several non–governmental organisations (NGOs) during which he presented a paper on the effects of Katse Dams construction on his community. The meeting gathered testimony for the World Commission on Dams from people affected by large dams. The Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), the parastatal organisation in charge of building Katse Dam, and other dams in the massive scheme, was represented at the meeting. All of the documents seized from Mr. Leuta pertained to his participation in this meeting.

Ten companies and two consortia were summoned to appear in the Maseru Magistrates’ Court in Lesotho on November 29 on charges of bribing Masupha Sole, former director of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA). Sole is accused of accepting around US$2 million in bribes from the companies, which included major dam–building firms from Europe, Canada and South Africa.

Dam–building companies charged with corruption in a Lesotho court should be suspended from receiving World Bank contracts while they are under investigation, says International Rivers Network. International Rivers is also calling on the World Bank to establish an independent investigation of its role in the scandal.

A dozen major international dam–building companies involved in the World Bank–funded Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) have lavishly bribed at least one top official on the project, allegedly giving nearly US$2 million in bribes over ten years, reports the South African newspaper Business Day. The information was revealed as part of a court case for the bribed official.

Earthquakes caused by the filling of a huge reservoir in the southern African country of Lesotho have terrified local people for more than a year. Houses in seven villages beside the reservoir of Katse Dam have been damaged by tremors, and in the village of Mapeleng, 11 houses were made uninhabitable by the quakes. In late January 1997, twelve families left Mapeleng, abandoning homes which were damaged more than a year ago by earthquakes. Tremors continue to strike the area, according to the World Bank, a project funder.

Five workers were shot dead and some 30 injured when police evicted striking workers from a Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) construction camp in Lesotho on September 14. For at least a week after the killings, up to 1,000 workers remained in a nearby Catholic church where they had sought refuge after the bloody encounter.