Lesotho Water Project / In the Medias

As the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) continues to compensate communities affected by the giant Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) in the Butha–Buthe district, notably in the ‘Muela and Khukhune areas, some communities similarly affected by the Project in the Thaba–Tseka and Maseru districts say the multi–billion dollar water scheme has forgotten about them.

It is the largest water scheme of its kind in the world. It is a brilliant engineering feat surpassed by none of its kind, and has opened once inaccessible rugged Lesotho highlands through a series of roads that lead to its large reservoirs such as the Katse, Mohale, and Muela dams.

As the impoundment of the Mohale reservoir of the giant Lesotho Highlands Development Project (LHWP) which started on Friday, November 1, 2002 is regarded as a milestone in the implementation of Phase 1B of the Project, The future remains uncertain and bleak for some local communities living around the reservoir.

A tale of Swiss bank accounts and battered reputations unfolds in a courtroom in faraway Lesotho

In a large brick courthouse in uptown Maseru, Lesotho, a gavel will pound down on a judge’s desk tomorrow.

Its measured thud will go unnoticed by Basotho shepherds herding their ponies over nearby passes or the local women hawking their wares in the market. But thousands of kilometres away in the outskirts of Oakville, its reverberations will rattle the foundations of a venerable Canadian company.

The Lesotho Highlands Water Project corruption trial begins on Monday, with some of the world’s largest construction companies among the accused. 

It started as a run–of–the–mill trial against one greedy individual in a tiny African state but has since snowballed into a court case that implicates some of the world’s largest and best–known construction companies. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project bribery and corruption trial begins on Monday at the Lesotho High Court in the capital, Maseru.

BUSINESS Day’s exposure of bribery on the Lesotho Highlands Water Project is a pointer to the degree to which the practice of corruption is increasingly becoming the norm in substantial sectors of big business.

It’s a tale involving millions of dollars allegedly funneled into Swiss bank accounts by giant international companies competing to build one of the biggest infrastructure projects under construction in the world.

MAPELENG, LESOTHO –– Small earthquakes have been rumbling in recent months through the Maluti Mountains in the small landlocked nation of Lesotho, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa. Mountain villages now live in fear of the ongoing earth tremors, such as the one that left a crack through the middle of the village of Mapeleng, and damaged many traditional stone–built rondavels (round houses).