In the Media

As the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) continues to compensate communities affected by the giant Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) in the Butha–Buthe district, notably in the ‘Muela and Khukhune areas, some communities similarly affected by the Project in the Thaba–Tseka and Maseru districts say the multi–billion dollar water scheme has forgotten about them. In August 2002, the LHDA paid out compensation of over M400, 000 to the ‘Muela community for their communal assets that were affected by the Project. The money was paid out to about 300 villages whos

As the impoundment of the Mohale reservoir of the giant Lesotho Highlands Development Project (LHWP) which started on Friday, November 1, 2002 is regarded as a milestone in the implementation of Phase 1B of the Project, The future remains uncertain and bleak for some local communities living around the reservoir. According to the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) the impoundment of the Mohale reservoir is being done at the start of the rainy season in order to capture as much as possible of the season s rainfall. The future and fate of the people living upstream of

It is the largest water scheme of its kind in the world. It is a brilliant engineering feat surpassed by none of its kind, and has opened once inaccessible rugged Lesotho highlands through a series of roads that lead to its large reservoirs such as the Katse, Mohale, and Muela dams. It is a multi–billion Dollar project called the Lesotho Highland Development Project (LHWP) which enjoys the financial support of multi–national corporations such as the World Bank and others and injects millions of Maloti into the Lesotho economy by selling water to the economic powerhouse of the Ga

A tale of Swiss bank accounts and battered reputations unfolds in a courtroom in faraway Lesotho In a large brick courthouse in uptown Maseru, Lesotho, a gavel will pound down on a judge’s desk tomorrow. Its measured thud will go unnoticed by Basotho shepherds herding their ponies over nearby passes or the local women hawking their wares in the market. But thousands of kilometres away in the outskirts of Oakville, its reverberations will rattle the foundations of a venerable Canadian company. If the verdict is guilty, Acres International Ltd. will become the first international

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project corruption trial begins on Monday, with some of the world’s largest construction companies among the accused.  It started as a run–of–the–mill trial against one greedy individual in a tiny African state but has since snowballed into a court case that implicates some of the world’s largest and best–known construction companies. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project bribery and corruption trial begins on Monday at the Lesotho High Court in the capital, Maseru. Several companies, including Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners of the UK, A

A Namibian nongovernmental organization has proposed alternative sources of power and water that could be developed instead of the controversial Epupa hydroelectric scheme and the Okavango water pipeline, an October 7 article in The Nambian reports. In an open letter to the Namibian government, Earthlife Africa’s Namibia branch states that a package of alternatives would effectively cut the cost of the existing schemes by around N$966 million (N$1 = US$0.214). "We believe that the time has come to look at all four projects together: Epupa, Kudu, the Okavango, and desalination,"

Dozens of commercial banks and lenders, including global heavyweights like Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Standard Chartered, signed an updated set of environmental and social safeguards on Thursday that binds them to shoulder more responsible lending in the future. Under the programme, more than 40 international financial institutions have committed to financing only those projects that comply with the Equator Principles (EP), a set of voluntary environmental and social standards that seek to uphold the rights of people displaced by projects and to protect endangered ecosystems. Signatories,

A long–delayed meeting between Namibia and Angola to decide the fate of the Epupa hydropower project, scheduled for early July, was postponed after officials from Angola did not show up. The Namibian reported on July 8: "The ongoing war in Angola has been blamed for the officials’ failure to arrive for the key two–day meeting, which is scheduled to discuss crucial differences between the two countries on the energy project." The meeting has already been postponed several times. Angolan officials have not rescheduled.<--break-> The two countries are at odds over where