Options Assessment

Bujagali Project Torpedoes Options Assessment for Uganda

Local and international groups have been lobbying for a full and fair review of the various energy options available to Uganda ever since the Bujagali Dam site was first granted to the US–based AES Corporation in the mid–1990s. However, extensive efforts by NGOs to promote further analysis of energy alternatives have for years fallen on deaf ears at the World Bank Group, the project’s main backer. In fact, the Bank has actually subverted efforts to analyze non–hydropower options: it manipulated data to justify Bujagali as the "least–cost" option for Uganda after its consultants pointed to other projects as cheaper; hired a dam–building firm to produce an "energy alternatives" report that analyzed only hydropower projects, and has consistently dismissed (without justification) the promising option of geothermal power.