Speech by the Minister of Natural Resources of the Kingdom of Lesotho

Minister of Natural Resources of the Kingdom of Lesotho, Mr. Monyane Moleleki

You Majesties the King and Queen,
Your Excellency President Mbeki of the Republic of South Africa,
The Right Honorable the Prime Minister,
My Dear Brother, Friend and Colleague, Minister Ronnie Kasrils,
Honourable ministers from Lesotho and South Africa,
Distinguished ladies and gentlemen,
All protocol observed,  
A very good morning to you all and a warm welcome to Mohale Dam!

Our task this morning, Honorable Minister Ronnie Kasrils and I, is, happily, a very short and simple one. It is to report and present to you, our principals and leaders and our Sovereign the magnificent dam you see before you. We are also honored to present to you, albeit less visible, an inter-connecting 32-kilometer-long tunnel between the Mohale and Katse reservoirs. Finally we are privileged to present to you a diversion weir on the Matsoku River, together with a three kilometer tunnel which takes the water from the Matsoku into Katse reservoir. That, your Majesties and Excellencies, sums up Phase 1B of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project.

We stand ready to take our further instructions from you on how to proceed with the Project beyond the construction of the phase we are dedicating today.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project has won many accolades and engineering distinctions. One of the most cherished of these is the award of the Engineering Project of the century bestowed by the Engineering Institute of South Africa towards the end of last year. Katse Dam, at 185 metres from the foundations, is the highest double curvature concrete dam on the African Continent. This Mohale Dam, with the height of 145 metres above the foundations is the highest rock-fill dam in all of Africa. The Project is fraught with numerous impressive statistics. Happily many of those have translated into meaningful benefits to the peoples of both our countries.

The following is but a sampling of the many benefits that it has brought to Lesotho alone.

In its 17 years of existence it has created more than 35,000 person years of jobs to the people of Lesotho, with earnings in excess of billion Rand. Small to medium-sized Lesotho contractors got some 150 million rands worth of contracts. Service providers from Lesotho landed over 900 million rands worth of contracts. Affected and resettled people of Lesotho have received compensation of over 240 million rands. Other invaluable infrastructure will remain in these mountains for very many years to come. It includes hundreds of kilometres of excellent quality roads, both paved and gravel, electricity and telecommunication networks, clinics, camps and a host of other residual infrastructure.

My dear friend Minister Kasrils has been a unique partner to work with. Despite his characteristic charm and affability, the man can say no when no has to be his answer. And, as the trite expression goes, when he does have to say no, he has a knack of telling you to go to hell in such a way as to make you look forward to the trip! And I must report to my Monarch and Prime Minister that on occasion I have had to invite Minister Kasrils to undertake the trip myself. In short it hasn’t always been smooth sailing in our negotiations. But disagreeing has given no offence to or from the other party.

In conclusion I wish to commend the staff of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, the Trans Caledon Tunnel Authority, the Highlands Water Commission, Consultants and contractors for their dedication and professional approach they adopted, to make this project the pride of our two countries that it is today.

I thank you for your attention!