Lotsane Dam is complete

By Kgotsofalang Botsang PALAPYE - The country's sixth largest dam is complete. The Maunatlala-based Lotsane Dam, with a water holding capacity of 40 million cubic metres, is expected to benefit 22 Tswapong villages. The tender for the dam construction was awarded to Sinohydro Corporation in January 2009 at the cost of about P724 million. The project's resident engineer, Mr Moghes Mekonen said in an interview that the dam had started holding water, however he said since the catchment area had not experienced heavy rainfall, the water was not enough. "The dam is filling up but it has not reached a level where we could start supplying water to the 22 identified villages." Mr Mekonen said construction of the 1.4km dam and associated works such as the 180m wide spillway, an irrigation pipeline and a pump station were complete. "Each and every stage of the project was supervised and we applied quality control measures," he said. The dam was initially expected to be complete by October 2011 but the date was extended to December 2011. The dam is also expected to drive the promotion of economic diversification and uplift the socio-economic status of the local communities through the provision of irrigation water for a horticultural project covering 250 hectares. BOPA