Zambezi River
Authority Chief Executive, Munyaradzi Munodawafa says
the outcome of the meetings between Zambia and Zimbabwe and the Cooperating
Partners to discuss the rehabilitation of the Kariba has been successful.
Mr. Munodawafa
says a number of issues relating to implementation were discussed which paves the
way to ensure the rehabilitation works are adequately funded.
He said this in a statement at the end of a series
of meetings between the Cooperating Partners and officials from the two
Governments over the past three weeks.
Also welcoming the
conclusions of the evaluation meetings by the Cooperating Partners, EU Head of
Delegation to Zambia, Gilles Hervio confirmed
that he was pleased with the progress that has been made so far in the
preparatory work to ensure that the rehabilitation works are done in a timely
manner to avert a power deficit in future.
Meanwhile African
Development Bank Country Representative Freddie
Kwesiga stated says he is impressed with the great team work and sense of
urgency by the technical teams of the financing institutions and ZRA.
He said that the team has shown that working
together among Cooperating Partners can achieve greater development results.
He added that the rehabilitation is important in
that it will also secure an already constrained generation capacity in the
southern African region.
And World Bank Group Country Director, Kundhavi Kadiresan, said the Organisation
is pleased that the intensive work that the technical teams have been doing in
the last few years has finally come together with this program of
rehabilitation for the Kariba dam.
She said Reliable power generation is needed to meet
the ever increasing demands of the region.
Ms. Kadiresan
added that the work between Zambia and Zimbabwe on the Kariba
rehabilitation has paved the way for further collaboration on harnessing energy
sources between the two countries so that transformational changes can be made
in the lives of the people in the sub-region.
And Swedish Sweden’s
Ambassador to Zambia, Lena Nordstrom, says the consequences of a dam failure would be a
serious setback for efforts to reduce poverty and to the impressive economic
development of Zambia in recent years, adding that making swift rehabilitation
of the dam is the only available course of action.
The Kariba Dam and Hydro-Electric Scheme (HES) was
constructed across the Zambezi River between 1956 and 1959 and has been central
to energy security and supporting economic development in both Zambia and
Zimbabwe.
After 50 years of operation serving the Southern African Region, the
Kariba Dam now requires rehabilitation works for its continued safe operation.
A failure to invest in the timely rehabilitation of the dam will result in the
gradual degradation of key dam safety features to a level below international
standards. Therefore, this rehabilitation project, which represents the
culmination of a series of in-depth technical studies over the past few years,
is absolutely crucial, and will restore the full safety of the dam.
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