Bujagali Power Dam Defended

Apr 02, 2003

UGANDA’s delegation at the third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, has defended construction of Bujagali hydropower dam saying the World Bank was still interested in funding it.

UGANDA’s delegation at the third World Water Forum in Kyoto, Japan, has defended construction of Bujagali hydropower dam saying the World Bank was still interested in funding it.
Gerald Tenywa writes that the state minister for energy, Daudi Migereko, said there was a lot of optimism that the World Bank would go ahead and fund the project.
“This is in line with the new thinking at the World Bank which lays emphasis on development impact first,’’ he said, while addressing the press yesterday. He was reacting to allegations that the World Bank would not fund the project due to corruption and lack of transparency.
Migereko said at the time when AES came to invest in such a large-scale project, there were few companies which were ready to come and work in the country.
However, he said now it was possible to talk about competitive bidding because Uganda has become attractive to investors.
He also said while Africa has abundant supply of water and hydroelectric resources, only 7% had been tapped, saying this had contributed to poverty and backwardness.
Migereko said about 5% of Africa’s population has access to electricity and in Uganda only 1% of the rural areas where 90% of the population live has access to electricity.
He said this had undermined Africa’s socio-economic transformation drive and development.
Commenting on corruption on Bujagali in which a top government official was implicated, he said this was being investigated by IGG and the Department of Justice of the US.
The forum was organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
It follows the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in which hydroelectric power was recognised and accepted by the world body as a clean and renewable form of energy.
Ruhakana Rugunda, the environment minister, who was accompanied by Migereko and Maria Mutagamba, the state minister for water, led the delegation which included NGOs.
They discussed various issues of water supply utilisation and water-related impacts and the sessions took place in Kyoto, Shiga and Osaka.

Editor: “We apologise for the inaccurate “political gossip’’ in Sunday Vision of March 30, saying that the ministerial team had returned early from an international water meeting in Kyoto, Japan, because of the Iraq war.’’
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