Lesotho Dam Project Sparks Backlash as Communities Demand Justice Amid Broken Promises

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project, a $2.4 billion infrastructure venture designed to funnel water to South Africa and generate hydropower for Lesotho, has become emblematic of the collision between grand development ambitions and grassroots suffering.

While engineers celebrate technical milestones, communities in Lesotho’s Mokhotlong District recount a litany of grievances: cracked homes from quarry blasting, rivers choked by consturction waste, and compensation promises that evaporated like the dust polluting their air.

“They said this project would lift us. Instead, it buried us,” says a farmer from Tloharebue, where villagers lost land without compensation. In many communities already affected by the ongoing project work and advanced infrastructure work of the project, many families were told to open bank accounts for compensation of household assets that has not arrived to date, while others received payouts so meager that withdrawing the money cost more than the amount itself.

Read the full article featuring AC Senior Communities Associate, Africa, Robi Chacha Mosenda, on News Ghana here.