Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.3.91.960717103925.14749C-100000@fox.ksu.ksu.edu> Date: Wed, 17 Jul 1996 10:41:22 -0500 From: kerry miller <mailto:astingsh@KSU.EDU> Subject: Re: hydro power dams in Uganda To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Wim: > Also information on the enlargement of the Owen Falls scheme will be
> appreciated.
>
Retrieved from "The Monitor" 10 May 96:Jinja mourns lack of crumbs from dam
Residents and local leaders of Jinja district, especially in the Municipality, are very discontented over the lack of benefits to the local community from the huge $70 million (Shs 70bn) Owen Falls Dam civil work being done by the Chinese company Sichuan International Engineering and Technical Corporation (SIETCO).
They mainly complained that the project has not employed significant numbers of people from the area; has not consumed food, and other goods and services.
These complaints come in the wake of other alleged shortcomings by SIETCO, mainly the slow civil works construction on the dam.
According to state-owned New Vision of April 18, SIETCO is six months behind schedule. The job was won by SIETCO in 1993. SIETCO emerged the lowest-bidder in an internationally advertised $300 million dollar tender, partly funded by the World Bank, DANIDA, Norway, Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), the European Union (EU) and other British, Scandinavian and Nordic countries.
The Uganda government is also a major financier of the big and expensive project, meant to increase Owen Falls Dam power generation to over 200.
The dam project right now is the biggest in East and Central Africa.
One resident of Jinja West, Isabirye Ibrahim, said when the project commenced in 1993, he planned to supply poultry products, fresh vegetables, fish, fruits and other food stuffs to the project. "But I have been terribly disappointed by the Chinese. They go fishing into the Lake or river Nile, and allegedly grow vegetables or go to markets in Jinja, where they bargain over vegetables, fruits and food stuffs in markets to the lowest prices," said a visibly disappointed Isabirye.
He said many large-scale commercial farmers in Jinja district, had gone into establishing big farms ostensibly to market their produce to the dam contractors.
Even officials at Jinja Municipal council, the central administrative authority of this once Uganda's largest industrial town told The Monitor that "the Owen Falls Dam expansion project is a disappointment" to them as well. The Director for Energy and Minerals in the Natural Resources Ministry, Mr. Kaliisa dismissed the local communities' cry for economic opportunities as too early.
"The benefits of such a project are long-term and many", Kaliisa said.
Asked to clarify on the recent press reports about the delay in civil works at the dam, Kaliisa said SIETCO's six months delay behind schedule, has been exhaustively discussed by concerned parties, and they have "reached amicable and corrective measures for the project." -By Wamboga-Mugirya/In Jinja.
ÿ-ÿ-ÿ- The Natural Environment Research Council's Institute of Hydrology (Wallingford, Ox.) reports
... a preliminary assessment has been made of the possible impacts of climate and land use change on lake levels. These studies have helped provide a better understanding of the response of the lake to past climatic events and have provided several possible scenarios for the behaviour of lake levels and outflows in the future. The existing hydropower plant at Jinja [ built in 54] is currently being rehabilitated and an additional 80 MW generating capacity has been installed based on our projections on future lake outflows.