A R53bn plan to bring water to Joburg hits opposition

A long-delayed R53 billion ($3.1 billion)  project that South Africa’s commercial hub is banking on to end a growing water crisis has hit fresh opposition.

Communities comprising 1 600 people have filed a formal complaint to the African Development Bank and demanded that the Lesotho Highlands Water Project II be temporarily halted.

Among other issues, they say they’ve been displaced by the development and denied adequate compensation.

The AfDB, together with the New Development Bank and the South African government, is financing the project, which will boost the supply of water from mountainous Lesotho to Johannesburg and its surrounds in neighbouring South Africa.

The AfDB lent $87 million to the Trans-Caledon Tunnel Authority, a South African state company that is overseeing the construction of a dam, a tunnel and other infrastructure.

“The physical destruction of homes, land, and health cannot be undone,” the communities said in a 32-page complaint backed