On a dusty mountaintop in Lesotho, Mamoliehi Tsapane beats sorghum with a wooden stick, the white grains popping from the husks over a bright green tarp. Just beyond her backyard, a Chinese construction company is blasting the mountain, carving out the base of what next year will become the 73-metre-high Metolong Dam.

Commissioned by Lesotho, financed by Western and Arab agencies, and built by China’s Sinohydro Corp, the dam is just one example of the international interest in capitalising on the crystal-clear water in this tiny mountain kingdom surrounded entirely by South Africa.

The building boom has generated billions of dollars in investment, but also changed the landscape and uprooted entire communities. “I have no idea when or if we will be moved,” said Tsapane.

“I wouldn’t mind moving because we are close to the dam. I feel my life would be in danger. But at the same time, I feel like I have all this property here, and I doubt I would be compensated fairly.”

Thousands of people have already been moved to make way for two dams over the last decade, part of a South African network of reservoirs and tunnels to divert water from Lesotho into the rivers that nourish Johannesburg.

The two countries are preparing to build the $993 million Polihali Dam to augment the system, with two more dams mooted.

The investment is equivalent to nearly half of Lesotho’s national economy, and the construction is expected to boost economic growth by one third, from four percent in 2011 to 5.9% in 2013.

Source: iafrica.com