Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene Nov - Dec Vol. 9 No.6 | Page 5

NEWS in brief

Around Africa

Angola

abundant energy to the neighbouring countries, enabling
industrial development and strengthening Africa’s energy
independence.

Energy and Waters Sector Strengthened

But the project is hugely controversial and downstream
countries, in particular Egypt, fear that the dam’s
management may have a catastrophic impact on their
water security.

Luanda — The minister of Energy
and Waters, João Baptista Borges,
recently guaranteed that the water
sector has been reinforced with
a view to fulfilling the goals of
the Executive in the ambit of the
National Development Plan.
João Baptista Borges
The government official said
when delivering a speech at the
public presentation of the “General plan for the integrated
utilization of hydric resources from the Okavango
hydrographic basin”, having stressed that with the recent
approval of the regulation on the utilization of water
resources and the presentation of new plans regarding the
basin, the sector is more reinforced in terms of institutional
mechanisms, with a view to materializing the objectives.

The minister went on to say that this presentation happens
at a stage that the Executive is committed to implementing
the solutions that have helped the country to reduce its
poverty index and improve people’s living standards.
He also reminded that the Okavango hydrographic basin
has the particularity of being of international importance.

Ethiopia
Ethiopia’s Millennium Dam: Science and controversy

SciDev.Net travelled to Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa
to put a spotlight on the science behind the controversy
and discovered how science diplomacy could provide new
platforms for dialogue.

Ghana
Volta River Authority signs MOU for 1,200MW coal power
plant
In Ghana, the national electric
utility the Volta River Authority
(VRA) has announced a
memorandum of understanding
with a subsidiary of Shenzhen
Energy Group to develop a
1,200 megawatt (MW) coalfired power plant.
Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah

Volta River Authority will work
with locally-based Sunon Asogli Power Ghana to bring the
power station online by 2018, Energy Minister Emmanuel
Armah-Kofi Buah told a press briefing in the capital Accra
recently.
Li Xiaohai, chairman of Sunon Asogli, said that he believes
coal can do for Africa what it has done and continues to do
for developed nations.
He said: “There is some misunderstanding. Coal is always
fundamental to thermal energy in the world – it is bigger
than oil, it is bigger than gas, bigger than any resources
currently in use.”

Source: EEPCo

The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, also known as
the Millennium Dam, is set to play a pivotal role in the
landscape of energy supply in Africa. The dam is due to
be completed in 2017 and is being built in the region
of Benishangul–Gumuz near the eastern border with
Sudan. Once finished, it will power Ethiopia and provide

“You can find out about the developed countries: Russia,
Japan, China, India, South African, all those countries are
still very much reliant on coal. But we don’t talk about it,
because we all know there are environmental issues.”
Mr Li told local media that he doesn’t see any r