Namibian Water Torture

ROMAN GRYNBERGWHEN THE Americans interrogate a prisoner they have commonly used waterboarding which involves pouring large volumes of water down the throat of the prisoner while his head is covered, creating a sense of drowning. The spies will tell you that after a while the prisoner will tell you anything to stop … but it’s usually lies.

Chinese water torture is far more subtle than the American approach. They place the head of a prisoner under a tap and drop one drop of water on his forehead after another. After a few days, the sound of the drop of water striking the forehead creates such excruciating pain that the prisoner will tell you everything. 

In Namibia, we like to torture ourselves with water through nothing short of great folly but we will feel the great pain.

This season, Mother Nature has granted Namibia and Botswana an abundance of rain – in Windhoek alone we have seen the best rains in a decade. Our dams are full and, at least for this year, with the exception of the drought in the Kunene, Erongo and Omusati regions, few farmers are complaining except where flood waters have destroyed crops. There is an incredible verdant splendour across the Kalahari not seen in years with wild flowers blooming in some of the country’s most arid places. But no one who lives in the Kalahari and the Namib can ever take water for granted. What God or Nature gives, He or She takes away.

We are as guilty of serious folly when it comes to preparing for drought as the developed world is with climate change policy. Every few years a more foolish idea permeates what passes for thinking and planning on water policy in Namibia. As a result of the rains, the huge Neckartal Dam on the Fish River, which holds some 800 million cubic metres of water, is overflowing. The project’s original budget was reportedly N$2,8 billion but the final costing ran to over N$5,5 billion. It is normal for large infrastructure projects to have cost overruns but given the initial controversy around the tender some eight years ago and huge increase in costs, perhaps the institutions supposed to oversee such things, such as the Anti-Corruption Commission or the office of the Auditor General, might wish to investigate.

The problem is not just the cost overrun but the entire planning of the Neckartal project. We have a huge dam in the Karas region intended to help irrigate some 5 000 hectares but just two weeks ago the minister of agriculture water and land reform, Calle Schlettwein, said they had no money for the second stage, the distribution of the water. 

So we have a huge dam full to the brim with water with nowhere to go? Sensible citizens will ask why no one in the ministry asked this question when the project was being designed. But the water will go – it will simply evaporate under the hot Kalahari sun. It will certainly not wait for the mythical year when Namibia will have money for the second stage of the project.

This is a project originally conceived by the German colonialists and which has been at least 20 years in the planning in the post-independence period. One can reasonably ask how anyone could have been so foolish as to design such a huge and expensive dam without first ensuring that the irrigation system was in place let alone the hydro-electric project supposed to generate electricity for the country. If God laughs at men and women planning, then He/She must surely be in stitches over the folly of our planners. But one is obliged to consider the possibility that there may have been more pernicious motives.

On the same day as minister Schlettwein made his announcement, there was a headline on the same page in The Namibian that State House was briefing Botswana President Mokgweetsi Masisi on a project to desalinate water from the Atlantic and pump it up to Windhoek and then across the Kalahari to water-poor Gaborone. 

The world looks flat when you fly in a presidential jet but not even the Kalahari is flat. The Erongo region desperately needs desalinated water for uranium production, for its increasing population, for fish processing and what will one day be a recovering tourism sector. But Windhoek is between 1 600 and 1 700 metres above sea level and we would need to pump expensive desalinated water (which at a minimum costs between N$12 and 15 per cubic metre to produce) up the Kalahari. In the domain of bad ideas, this makes what was done at the Neckertal project look like an act of economic genius. The report said the government is actually undertaking a feasibility study so at least the consultant will profit from this folly.

And so the Namibian water torture and the pain continue.

In an age of information overload, Sunrise is The Namibian’s morning briefing, delivered at 6h00 from Monday to Friday. It offers a curated rundown of the most important stories from the past 24 hours – occasionally with a light, witty touch. It’s an essential way to stay informed. Subscribe and join our newsletter community.