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Mohammad Omer, deputy general manager of Nova Star
Garment Plc is one of the thousands of
businesspeople in Ethiopia who are likely to suffer
losses, or at least a decline from their normal
performance, whenever there is a power interruption.
Though not as concerned about power generation
related issues as the Ethiopia Electric Power
Corporation (EEPCo) and energy authorities are,
businesses like Nova, are eager to see the ongoing
and intended hydroelectric power generation projects
in Ethiopia, including the Gilgel Gibe (GG) III,
start supplying power, at least to avoid the cost
incurred for the procurement of fuel for diesel
generators.
“A power interruption in the last two weeks has
caused us to spend considerable money in a short
time for the 300 to 400 litres of fuel we used,”
Mohammad told Fortune.
What improved power supply means to companies like
Nova is sustainable production without extra cost
for power.
“Of course, power interruptions are a serious
problem to our performance,” the businessman
said.
Much to the annoyance of the energy authorities, and
to the frustration of all who impatiently wait their
commissioning, most of the five mega power
generation projects EEPCo is currently undertaking
are full of challenges; though none seem to have
been as fiercely defined as the GG III.
The recently heightened controversy surrounding the
GG III project originates from Kenyan soil.
Ironically, though, Kenya is also waiting for the
commissioning of GG III, as Ethiopia has already
committed itself to selling power to its neighbour
beginning 2012. Following the Power Interconnection
Agreement signed between the two countries in
September 2006.
The power to be sold to Kenya is expected from Gibe
III, which is anticipated to generate an additional
1,870Mw, making the total exceed Ethiopia’s current
power demands. It is a scheme Ethiopian authorities
hope will bring in millions of dollars, and perhaps
finance future development projects, including
construction of similar hydropower generation
plants. However, despite the financial gain from the
scheme, the impact the controversial project is
alleged to have on some Kenyan and Ethiopian
communities has been used as arsenal by some groups
who are fighting to block the financing of the
project.
The project, which includes a 270m-high dam will
have the capacity to hold 14.7 million cubic metres
of water. It is also expected to be the first dam in
the country to contain 10 turbine units, and five
kilometres of tunnels. Each turbine unit is likely
to generate 187Mw of electric power, equivalent to
Gilgel Gibe I’s current output.
The project involves the extension of 550Km of
transmission line from the generation plant to
Welayta, 390Km south of Addis Abeba, in the Southern
Nations, Nationalities and People’s Regional State (SNNPRS),
for the supply of power to Kenya. Furthermore, the
line would extend from Welayta to Kaliti and other
mega power sub-stations.
More than 25pc of the electric power expected from
the dam is planned to be exported to Kenya and
neighbouring countries. Ethiopia has agreements to
export 200Mw, 500Mw, and another 200Mw to Djibouti,
Kenya and Sudan, respectively, when the five dams
under construction - Tekeze, Gilgel Gibe II, Beles,
Fincha and Gibe III - are completed.
“The Kenyans are one of the major beneficiaries of
this hydropower dam,” Meheret Debebe, general
manager of EEPCo, told Fortune. “We are
trying to engage them in the project.”
Paradoxically though, Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT),
a Kenyan organization representing indigenous groups
in northwest Kenya whose livelihoods are linked to
Lake Turkana, is one of the key groups that are
challenging the most likely financer of the project,
the African Development Bank (AfDB).
So extreme is the controversy that in December 2008,
a Kenyan Member of Parliament Ekuwe Ethuro, who
represents Turkana central population, recommended
his government threaten war on Ethiopia for starting
Gibe III dam constructions on Omo River. Ekuwe asked
why Kenya is not using Egypt’s policy of putting
pressure on Ethiopia by threatening to go to war if
Ethiopia uses the water resources.
For many decades, Egypt is said to have threatened
war on Ethiopia over the Nile River flow, including
threats by the its former President, Anwar Sadat in
1970, when Ethiopia proposed the construction of a
dam on Lake Tana on the Blue Nile.
Nevertheless, unalarmed by the assertions by the
Kenyan MP, Ethiopian officials sound determined and
optimistic about their ambitious power generation
projects.
That ambition is what Prime Minster Meles Zenawi
reiterated in January 2009, during a press
conference in Addis Abeba on the sidelines of a
conference on climate that he attended.
“Of course, we recognize the difference between the
threat of war and the threat posed by people who
believe that their mouth is created only to speak as
they wish, and who do not want to make sure that
their mouth is very efficient in producing all sorts
of things at all times,” Meles said. “Simply
because somebody has said that Ethiopia is harming
the interest of Kenya and we should fight, it does
not mean that we should start trembling.”
Beyond dismissing the Kenyan MP’s assertion, Meles
also counteracted the alleged impacts of
constructing dams on Omo, and even Nile rivers.
The amount of water in the Turkana has been
diminishing over the past three to four decades, and
this has nothing to do with the dams Ethiopia is
building, Meles explained. Dams do not increase or
decrease the volume of water available in any
significant sense. They regulate the flow of that
water, and to an extent that affects the amount of
water positively, the Premier contended, supporting
his argument with the fact that the Lake Turkana is
on the lowlands, and therefore transpiration there
is high, while the dams are built in the highlands
of Ethiopia, which are cooler and make evaporation
lower.
“If anything, the dams that we build on the Nile and
on the Omo would increase the total amount of water
in the basins and would not, in any way, decrease
it,” Meles said.
Gibe III included, Ethiopia is actively engaged in
the construction of major hydroelectric power
generating plants in different parts of the country.
The disputed project’s 1, 870Mw is expected to
become an integral part the joint 3,150Mw the nation
is hoping to get from Tekeze, Gilgel Gibe II, Beles
and Fincha.
It is only slightly more than a year since the
electric power supply coverage in Ethiopia reached
33pc, climbing more than twice from the 10pc more
than a decade ago.
Under its Universal Electrification Access Project (UEAP),
the state electric power monopoly, EEPCo, envisions
increasing supply of electricity to 6,000 towns, up
from the current 2, 753, and raising the geographic
coverage within the next five years to 50pc, up from
33pc.
The sole power supplier, which operated for the last
61 years under different names and structures under
different regimes, produces 800Mw of power daily, a
supply short of the normal demand by 80Mw, and that
of peak hours’ by 150Mw. The demand is, however,
still increasing by 13pc every year. The current
number of customers EEPCo has is about 1.7 million,
of which 40pc are in Addis Abeba.
Although Ethiopia has the potential to generate
45,000Mw of electric power, experts believe that it
has to overcome serious natural and climatic
challenges before fully utilizing the potential.
Beyond the natural challenges, GG III, in
particular, has to go through a much sterner
challenge.
For instance, Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT) on
February 4, 2009, filed a formal request to African
Development Bank’s (AfDB) Compliance Review and
Mediation Unit (CRMU) internal accountability
mechanism, to get involved and investigate the
Bank’s plan to finance Gibe III. International
Rivers is another major campaigner backing FoLT
against the project; it was formerly known as
International Rivers Network (IRN) and is based in
five continents, mostly focusing on Africa, Asia and
Latin America. The organization has 24 years of
expertise in dams, energy and water policy, climate
change, and international financial institutions.
It is now monitoring the dam planning in Ethiopia,
and working to keep international donors from
investing in the projects it claims to be
“unpleasant.” International Rivers is also sharing
knowledge about better alternatives with both local
and international society.
The two groups say they stand firm to protect the
people who, they argue, are expected to be potential
losers once the project is complete and running.
The groups contend that many people will be
negatively affected by the construction of the third
portion of the Gibe hydroelectric power dam. These
include the more than a quarter of a million
inhabitants in Northern Kenya, around Lake Turkana,
the world’s largest permanent desert and alkaline
lake, and the more than half a million around the
Omo River, which supplies roughly 80pc of the water
to Lake Turkana, in southern part of Ethiopia, of
which a 100,000 people are directly engaged in flood
recession agriculture.
Without the lake, life for these people would be
virtually impossible, according to the activists.
The majority of those who live on land that is used
for flood-recession agriculture are dependent on
Omo’s floods to sustain their most reliable sources
of food.
Contrary to Meles’s assertions, the anti Gibe III
groups argue that consequential changes in the
substance balance of the water, following the
construction of the dam, threatens the region’s
biodiversity, including large populations of Nile
crocodiles, hippopotamus, and over 40 different
species of fishes and snakes. They also argue that
such changes also puts at risk the livelihood of an
estimated 200,000 people who depend on the resources
of the lake primarily for fishing, herding and
cultivation.
Lake Turkana, which covers a 130,860Sqkm catchment
area has three tributaries: the Omo River
(Ethiopia); Turkwel (flowing from Mount Elgon in the
Kenya-Uganda border); and Kerio (another
Kenyan river flowing northwards).
Perhaps in line with what Meles had said, the depth
of the lake has already decreased by about five to
eight metres because of climate change.
The impact of the Gibe dam on the lake would very
likely lead to heightened conflict over scarce
resources. Even with the current available resource,
the Omo, a 760Km-long river, is a usual location for
conflict, argues FoLT.
In quite the reverse, there is a claim by EEPCo that
there have been 136 meetings and discussions held
with members of the community and their leaders
drawn from various sectoral offices at regional
level that suggest the positive effects of the dam
construction. Over 1,750 people comprising 869
community members, 203 zone and woreda officials,
and 409 members of the peasant associations were
consulted through community discussions and more
than 250 consulted privately.
The Social Development Program, hence, which
includes irrigation agriculture, has better
potential for future food security in the areas.
“In the aggregate sum, all involved should be able
to recognize the positive economic impacts the
construction of the dam will bring,” Meheret told
Fortune.
“By any means of measurement and any international
competitive terms, this is one of the best
projects,” Meheret stated.
He said that the project includes Social and
Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA)
and Down Stream Water Requirement and Management as
part of the study conducted.
For him, the social, environmental or hydrological
impacts on Lake Turkana do not only originate from
Gibe III, but are due to the geographic structure of
the basin itself.
“This normally has been the cause for drought in the
region.”
The Ethiopian government has long searched for an
international financier for Gibe III, a 1.7 billion
dollars project, whose construction was awarded to
Salini Costruttori SPA, an Italian construction firm
that is also undertaking the construction of Gibe
II.
The project’s ESIA, Additional Downstream Study,
Environmental and Social Management Plan and
Resettlement Action Plan were approved by the
Ethiopian Environmental Protection Authority in July
2006, at the same time that Gibe III was awarded to
Salini. In fact, the way the project was awarded to
the Italian firm has also been disputed to the
extent that it has repulsed potential international
financiers - the World Bank and European Investment
Bank - which declined to finance the project saying
the tender procedure did not fulfil, their
requirements, which entails transparent public
tender.
However, Meheret is confident AfDB will not turn
them down.
“We are very optimistic about the financing we
requested from AfDB,” he said.
AfDB, was initially scheduled to discuss the project
on February 25, 2009; however, so far, there is no
indication as to when the project will be formally
considered.
The AfDB’s procurement policy has four basics, one
of which is the importance of transparency in the
procurement process. The four points remain
inflexible unless the Board of Directors of the bank
decides otherwise. This is one basic points
constantly raised by the groups who struggle to stop
the bank from providing the funding.
Even without such procurement and environmental
issues included, finding finances for such projects
on energy and power has never been an easy task for
Ethiopian authorities, the Ministry of Mines and
Energy (MoME) and EEPCo. But they still have faith
they will get the funds for GG III.
“I am certain that the AfDB will finance the
project,” Alemayehu Tegenu, minister of Mines and
Energy, told Fortune.
The construction of this project, which began in
2006, is considered to have violated Ethiopia’s own
laws on environment protection and project
procurement practices.
“The groups are disseminating these information just
to advance their interests,” Meheret said blaming
groups like FoLT for basing their arguments on false
accusations.
The other edge of the argument by groups like FoLT
is that communities to be affected by the project
are unlikely to benefit from the power to be
generated.
Hydropower dams lack extensive distribution lines,
which are needed to reach the country’s rural
population where currently, only two per cent have
access to electricity. The same is true on the
Kenyan side; the power exported would reach Nairobi
and its surrounding areas.
“We are facing the challenge and we are
counteracting,” Meheret said. “There were previous
challenges to raise finances, like in cases such as
Nile, so we have to stand up against these
challenges to ensure our national interest.”
There has been an external consultant hired by AfDB
to work on the financial and technical assessment of
the future benefits of the project, Meheret stated.
“We are still in the process of examining and
reviewing the project proposal,” Peter Mwanakatwe,
officer-in-charge of the AfDB in Ethiopia, told
Fortune.
The final decision by the AfDB as to whether or not
to finance the disputed project is an issue that
interests not only senior officials on energy
matters, like Alemayehu Tegenu and Meheret Debebe,
or their counterparts, FoLT and International
Rivers, but also ordinary people like Mohammad Omer
and farmers around Lake Turkana and Omo River who
are not as active in the debate, but are obviously
likely to be affected by any decision made.
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