South Africa has approved the second phase of a multi-billion dollar water project in landlocked Lesotho to ensure a secure future water supply in its industrial hub, the water minister said Thursday, [04 December 2008].
{Started in 1984], the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, one of the world’s largest infrastructure projects under construction [...] diverts water from Lesotho’s mountains to South Africa’s richest province Gauteng. The project [will cost an estimated] 7.3 billion rand (710 million US dollars/560 million euros).
{The project] came under fire from civic groups [like International Rivers] for displacing up to 20,000 people, [...] introducing AIDS, alcoholism and prostitution, and causing the loss of farming and grazing land.
The project also resulted in convictions of some of the world’s largest engineering firms, after massive corruption was uncovered in 1999.
Source: AFP / Yahoo! News, 04 Dec 2008
