A hydro-electric project dam in northern Namibia could displace 2 000 people. Graham Hopwood reports from Windhoek
THE Himba people in north-west Namibia are battling a plan to construct a hydro-power station and dam on the Kunene River which could flood up to 400km2 of their land.
“We don’t want the construction of the dam. It’s our ancestral residence,” says Himba chief Muatjindika Mutambo.
If the project designated for the Epupa area goes ahead, the Himba will not only lose grazing land, but also many of their ancestral graves.
Mutambo rejects the possibility that the government will compensate them financially if they move from the area. “How do you pay for ancestral graves with money?” he asked at a recent press conference.
Mutambo travelled 900km to Windhoek last month to plead his people’s case against the dam, but his arguments have so far made little headway with the government.
The debate over the dam is rapidly turning into a party political war of words, with the Himba enlisting the support of the official opposition, the Democratic Turnhalle Alliance (DTA).
Swapo MP Angelika Muharukua is leading a campaign urging that the dam be speeded up as it would bring development to the isolated region.
Claims have suggested that the technical committee overseeing the project is pressing ahead with plans for a massive dam against the advice of official consultants from Norway and Sweden, who are currently conducting a feasibility study.
The feasibility team said in its first report that the final investigations should concentrate on one site only – a smaller, lower impact dam in the Baynes mountains. The Baynes option would flood only 94km2 and directly affect about 100 Himba.
The team’s report recommended that “on the basis of technical feasibility, economic viability and environmental acceptability” the Baynes option be subject to a full feasibility study and environmental impact assessment.
However, the Namibian-Angolan joint technical committee on the Epupa project differed with the consultants’ findings. Although only Namibia will benefit from electricity generated by the project, Angolan representatives are serving on the technical committee since the Kunene River marks the border between the two countries.
The technical committee insisted, apparently at Namibia’s urging, that a much larger dam site should also be included in the final stage of the study.
The committee instructed the feasibility consultants to continue their research on a site which would flood nearly 400km2 of the Himba’s land – affecting at least 2 000 people and destroying 160 ancestral graves and archaeological sites.
The larger site would also swamp the Epupa waterfalls tourist attraction and have a much greater impact on the downstream environment.
At a public consultation meeting two weeks ago it emerged that the Swedish and Norwegian governments, which have pumped the equivalent of R26-million into the study, will not fund the investigations into the second larger site, officially because of “budget constraints”.
As a result Namibia and Angola have agreed to find an extra R3-million needed to research the viability of the larger dam site.
Local press reports have alleged that the Namibian government is insisting on the site at Epupa because it wants “a prestige project” which means having a massive dam regardless of the objections.
Imker Hoogenhout, a spokesman for the technical committee, said the larger site has been added because the smaller Baynes option would be highly dependent on the proper functioning of the Gove dam in southern Angola.
Gove was badly damaged during the Angolan war and has not yet been fully repaired. Hoogenhout maintains that because of uncertainties over peace in Angola, it is too risky to concentrate solely on the Baynes site and therefore another option is needed.
The feasibility study group is due to make a final recommendation later this year and if it gives the go-ahead construction could start before the end of the century.
The Namibian government says the 300 megawatt power plant and dam are necessary to make Namibia energy self-sufficient. Environmentalists opposing the dam argue that the government would do better to concentrate on the offshore Kudu gas field and alternative energy sources to meet the rising demand for electricity.
Upping the political ante surrounding the project DTA vice-president Katuutire Kaura has claimed that it would be unconstitutional for the government to take communal land from the Himba. He argues that under the country’s supreme law, a council of traditional leaders which would include Himba chiefs should advise the president on the use of communal land. The council has not been convened since independence in 1990.
In a counter move Swapo supporters in favour of the Epupa project have called for a referendum in the Kunene region to decide if the hydropower plan should go ahead.