ALARM - Government to go ahead with Phase 1 at Kapachira before the promised study has been done?
This Government that has already shown its pig-headedness by constructing an idle port at Nsanje seems hell-bent on wasting the tax-payers' money by going ahead with Phase 1 of a massive, 42000 hectare irrigation scheme without having first completed the studies that the Ministry of Irrigation promised the nation in a press release dated 11 November 2010 signed by the Permanent Secretary, in response to an article that I had written for a local newspaper expressing my concerns and reservations.
TO REMIND: "Government is currently in the proces of identifying a consultant to undertake additional studies as gap-fillers considering issues that have been raised in recent past which are viewed to be relevant to the implementation of the Project. Some of the identified gaps include appropriate choice of irrigated crops; well-defined management structure; potential for public private partnership (PPP); cost recovery and sustainability issues; property rights; proper assessment of water availability and siltation issues."
If the consultants who have been working on this project for more than 12 years have not properly considered such critical issues in all that time I doubt whether the Government has had the time, in just 3 months, to identify a consultant and receive a comprehensive consultancy report answering all these 'gap-fillers'.Certainly, there can have been no detailed engineering designs, the necessary environmental impact assessments or local population sensitisation. This is a Government effort to bulldoze through another ill-considered 'white elephant' and expensive construction project - to the benefit of whom is hard to tell. It looks like a civil servant's attempt to persuade the Technicolor Dreamer that something good is about to happen.Mr. Maweru (PS), this is not going to make your reputation at all!
TO GO AHEAD NOW WOULD BE DISASTEROUS! NO SENSIBLE PLANNER WOULD CONSTRUCT A MAJOR PART OF A PROJECT BEFORE THE WHOLE PROJECT HAS BEEN DESIGNED AND PROVED.
OUR MONEY WILL GO TO WASTE JUST TO BOOST THE PRESIDENT'S EGO.
'EGO' = 'EGG IN THE FACE' - JUST LIKE NSANJE PORT BUT MORE COSTLY TO THE NATION. ANOTHER DREAM TO TURN INTO A NIGHTMARE.
Resulting on part to the publicity that we gave, the World Bank sent a team to Malawi. I was one of a local group that met with that team together with their colleagues from the African Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation (the commercial investment wing of the World Bank Group).
It became obvious from that meeting that the grouping had serious reservations about the viability stating that the work done for the Malawi Government by CODA, Government's regular consultants on this scheme since 1986 or thgereabouts, was not sufficient for them to go ahead. The World Bank stated their intentions of commencing a process that would answer all the stringent conditions that they ahve to apply to their funded projects..
I guess that the Malawi Government has realised that they have very little hope now of getting funding from either the World Bank or the African Development Bank. The Ministry of Irrigation seems intent on frustrating proper procedures by sourcing investment from organisations that do not share the concerns that we, the World bank and ADB have for a variety of reasons from environmental, to societal through economic.
THE ONLY REASON THAT THE GOVERNMENT WOULD GO AHEAD WOULD BE IF THEY INTEND TO REMOVE THE PEOPLE FROM THE LAND AND HAND IT OVER TO BIG BUSINESS.
Recently a group of twelve Koreans from Hyundai Engineering, Korea, accompanied by an official of the Irrigation Ministry visited the Majete/Kapachira site telling people that they have been awarded the contract for Phase 1 - the water offtake. They stated that they would construct a dam at Kapachira, not at Hamilton Falls inside Majete Wildlife Reserve as previously planned.
There is no point in constructing a water offtake until the downstream issues have been settled.
We will attempt to obtain information from the Ministry of Irrigation and will post regularly to this blog.
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Those who are not familiar with the scheme and our reservations can read all about it in our on-line magazine pictured above. You do need a reasonably good internet connection. Click here
LOTS OF MONEY LOOKING FOR A HOME
As a result of quantitive easing (QE) in America there is a lot of newly created 'money' looking for a home. This money is fuelling the new African land grab and speculation in food and commodities. It is speculation, not shortage, that is driving up world food prices. This is one of the factors causing disaffection in the Arab world. Malawi must be vigilant. Any money coming in for 'investment' must not have this speculative factor!
READ MY REPORT OF MEETING WITH WORLD BANK click here
Where are all the displaced families going to be relocated to, and what additional pressures are going to be put on the areas they will be moved to????? And tha tleads to the next pressing issue of the major impact this will also have on the Wildlife..!!!!! Not ot mension the drop in the Shire water level, Oh yes and those boats going to Nsanje port "Where has all the water gone".....
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