15 June 2007
Just weeks after the World Bank Group approved $360 million in loans and guarantees for the Bujagali Hydroelectric Dam, the project is again in the news following renewed debate over the crisis facing Lake Victoria.
The Guardian reports that the $800 million dam on the Victoria Nile in Uganda, the "biggest-ever foreign investment in East Africa," will be unlikely to produce the projected 250 MW of electricity because water levels of Lake Victoria, the river's source, are at record lows.
While Bujagali’s proponents attribute the decline in the world's second largest fresh-water lake to a regional drought and regular cycles, others contend that existing dams have been at fault. According to The Guardian, "engineers had made excessive releases through the [existing] dam wall, causing more than half of the drop in the lake," in order to keep up with growing energy demands.
Regardless of the cause, critics argue that Bujagali will operate at well below capacity. Frank Muramuzi of Uganda's National Association of Professional Environmentalists (NAPE) predicts that the "output will be closer to 100MW, which will make the power far too expensive," and that "smaller, cheaper options such as micro-hydro, solar and geothermal projects located in areas that would be of more benefit to the rural poor have not been adequately explored."
Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has also spoken out for the need to prevent further reductions in the levels of Lake Victoria. Last week, Kibaki launched the Lake Victoria Basin Commission, a collaborative initiative by the governments of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania designed to reverse the lake's ecological decline. All three countries border on the lake, on which over 30 million people depend for their livelihoods.
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