The deception of the Akosombo Dam, Ghana

I realise that I am getting more and more interested in large scale projects concerning water and especially river management. Since I have written about the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in two of my former blogs, my knowledge and excitement about this topic is increasing. After attending a lecture about water management and discussing the Akosombo Dam in Ghana, I was eager to dive into this topic and its interesting political background and history. Therefore this week’s blog is about the Akosombo Dam. First I will give an impression of the Akosombo Dam with some facts and statistics about it. Subsequently I will focus on its history, as the dam is quite old. Finally I will try to put this case study in a broader perspective and give my comments and ideas about it in regards to politics.

The Akosombo Dam

The Akosombo Dam (Figure 1) – located in Akosombo, Ghana – is a so-called rockfill dam on the Volta river that was completed in 1965 as part of the Volta River Project. The specific name of the dam project is The Akosombo hydroelectric project (HEP) and is managed by the Volta River Authority (VRA). The dam is 134 meters high and has a crest of 671 meters. The dam was primarily built for the generation of hydropower which is mainly used by an aluminium smelting company at Tema known as the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO). Furthermore it generates power for domestic, commercial and other industrial consumers. The dam contains 6 generating units with an installed capacity of 912 megawatts. The construction of the dam was jointly financed by the government of Ghana, the United States, the United Kingdom and the World Bank and the estimated cost of the project is around 258 million dollar. The construction of the dam resulted in the flooding of the Volta river, creating Lake Volta, one of the largest man-made lakes in the world. The lake was formed between 1962 and 1966 and caused approximately 80,000 people to resettle. Most of these relocated people were fishermen or subsistence farmers (Ghana Nation, 2011; Encyclopaedia Britannica; Gyau-Boakye, 2001).

The impoundment of the dam has been a success in several areas: the overall economic and industrial development of the country; transportation on Lake Volta; fishing, which has been profitable since the formation of the lake, intensification of farming along the 5500 km long shoreline; and a boom in tourism. On the other hand, the Akosombo Dam has had a negative impact on the environment and necessitated 80,000 people to resettle (Gyau-Boakye, 2001).

Figure 1: The Akosombo Dam

Source: Britannica.com

Cold War Battle Grounds

As this blog is not meant to be a cost-benefit analysis of the Volta River Project, I am not going to focus more on the positive and negative outcomes the project has had so far. Instead I want to emphasise the context and the reasons why and by whom the project was executed and 

payed for. It’s useful and important to address in what circumstances the project has taken place and who was in charge, so that we can understand how and why projects like this are being undertaken.

Although the Akosombo Dam was built in 1962, the idea of it is much older. British geologist Albert Ernest Kitson came up with it as early as 1915. In 1942, under the British Colonial Administration, the plans for the dam began to drawn up. After gaining independence – as the first African country to do so – elected Prime Minister of independent Ghana Dr. Kwame Nkrumah adopted the project the Brits had designed before. Kwame Nkrumah fully embraced modernist development ideas the ex-colonial powers had developed (Ghana Nation; Showers, 2011). Thus, the Volta River Project – what the Akosombo Dam is part of – lays in the centre of modernisation programs that would promise rapid industrialisation and electrification for the nation (Miescher & Tsikata 2009; Miescher, 2012). Ghana, and the rest of the continent were still dependent on the colonial powers. In order to gain economic independence. Ghana - along with other African countries - started with import substitution, which became the new element of development strategies. This strategy seemed to work quite well and Ghana’s economy was growing rapidly. Moreover living standards were improving as well. However, things changed by the late 1960’s and the economic development Ghana experienced had slowed down. Presumably this stagnation was due to ‘over-investment’ in the social sector and corruption (Baah, 2003).

What is largely ignored is the impact the cold war has had on the African continent after de-colonisation. Africa became one of the battlegrounds for the West and the Soviet-Union immediately after independence. Like Ghana, a lot of African countries were likely to choose the human-centred path of economic and social development  which had been very successful. The West saw this rapid, socialist orientated development as a threat to the free market ideology. This led to inference of the West in African political and economic affairs through respectively secret agencies and institutions. As mentioned before, the Akosombo Dam was built by investment of the World Bank, the US and the UK. The financing of the dam was the West’s attempt of political and economic influence in Ghana and in response to the Soviet-Union that constructed the Egyptian Aswan Dam. The objective of this strategy was not to help Ghana, or Africa in general, it was only a strategic interest of the West. The strategy was meant to undermine state participation and economic activities. Preventing for African countries to takeover the major economic activities (because they lacked entrepreneurship, skills and credit) and therefore pulling the states out of economic activities, the big Western multinationals could fill in these gaps and take over a lot of African economic activities (Baah, 2003).

Deception

Focusing on the context in which the dam is built is a useful way to reveal the politics behind the dam. In case of the Akosombo Dam, the main reason to build the dam was for modernisation and national unity/pride after becoming independent. It was a sign of a new beginning, future prosperity and nationalism. However it was also a colonial heritage and a cold war battle ground. Interests of the West and the Soviet-Union dominated national and international politics at that time. Whereas Ghana and the Ghanaians were pleased by the construction of the dam, it became a symbol of Western capitalism and the cold war that has played a major role in Africa’s post-colonial development. I guess the point I am trying to make is that water, although being omnipresent and so familiar, is a powerful tool to use in achieving your own goals and likes. The West used Ghana’s Volta river (so water) in order to satisfy Ghanaians by supplying them with electricity. However the only reason for the West to do so was to expand their capitalist ideology. The dam is a symbol for Africa’s failed economic development in the late 1960’s and their ‘invasion’ of Western multinationals that ultimately benefit the West more than the Africans. The electricity generated by the dam is mainly used by a massive aluminium smelter that’s owned by an American Company. In the end it feels like a deception: a massive dam built as a national trademark, generating power and economic development. But in the end it has been a game for the West, trying to influence Ghana with capitalist ideology. Using the electricity mainly for their own interest  and leaving behind a disrupted ecosystem and 80,000 displaced people. This case study taught me the power water can have over nations and international politics. Water can be a means of getting what you want.