Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Bagatelle or Phase 2 of Midlands Dam?

Bagatelle Dam will hold 15 million m3 and cost between Rs 3.1-3.4 billion while Phase 2 of the Midlands Dam involves 17 million m3 and by my rough estimates should come with a tag of Rs1.2 billion. Isn't that getting 2 million m3 for a couple of billions less?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

The IMF experts can surely help with this difficult choice, see the extract below taken from Lexpress:


'Maurice accueillera un centre d’excellence et de conseil pour les pays africains en matière de gestion économique. Pravind Jugnauth, ministre des Finances, et Nemat Shafik, du FMI, ont signé un accord en ce sens hier, lundi 18 avril'

Anonymous said...

forgot to add - send to le form mauricien please.

Anonymous said...

Centre d'excellence hein, maru ca. who will work there, anyone of these: Mansoor, suzanne, Cader,Darga,ramgoolam's economics' advisor, Maya the health minister, harry booluck, JEC smart boys,Democracy watch mauritius seniors, Stimuls package team monitoring (secret )members

'......Gestion economique.....', mon tonkin!!

akagugo said...

@ Anonymous of April 19, 2011 10:14 PM:
:-)
Yeah, swear-words effectively reduce pain.
Allez dire, kott to'nn gagne boubou...?

By investing in capital now, it's a future benefit that can't be estimated now, and on which future generations will be building on. See, Mare-aux-Vacoas itself was put in service in 1888 (page 9) after construction started in 1885 (with many upgrades until 1961) and still benefitting our economy. How on Earth could decision-makers of the 1880's predict that our demand would be so high that the plans for this gigantic reservoir actually managed to make their way from design offices to actual physical construction...? Can you imagine Madame Kwok or any of our MP's giving predictions over this span of time?

What would be most sensible would be management of run-off (no matter where (page 6) a rain drops hits the ground if it doesn't get absorbed into the ground it will run along downhill surfaces until it reaches some stream and will meet its friends at the lowest point of catchment areas (watershed) on a sub-catchment to sub-catchmnet basis as studied here (page 496 and here for the famous (most prolific) Rivière du Poste catchment.

Now you can give accurate estimates of the 'captive capacity' of all the sub-catchments covering our island (remember always: what can be measured can be controlled, and without control, no planning is possible). Now, we must be sure this system of temporary / decentralised surface water reservoirs does not coincide with potentially problematic areas...

In any case, experts have already recommended taming our sub-cathcments. Ayo, sorry, our PM says that experts should not be trusted!

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

Watatow! Mersi akagugo!!! Byen bizin al zet enn bon ley dan sa bann dokiman la kuma gayn enn ti letan. Ler fini pu dormi inpe mwin kuyon. En tu ka pa mank kompetans dan sa pei la: bizin zis les zot travay. Problem ti pu regle enn par enn.

Kav estim benefis investir dan reservwar ek lezot infrastriktir. Kav kumans par bann zafer simp kuma estim ku kan gagn problem.

Apre si pena enn minimam planing to u tar partu pu grener.

akagugo said...

@ SJ:

Il faut rendre à César ce qui appartient à César: we should rather thank the authors of the studies who have devoted so much of their lifetime into their field of specialisation without ever being asked for a sharing the limelight unlike this guy who's called upon so often presumably because he's among the very rare academics who still counts on the sugar industry to provide us with electricity on the long term, and despite his laudable participation in the collective effort to find ways to tap energy sources from anywhere, is probably oblivious that "bagasse-derived electricity (...) performs poorly in relation to water consumption...".

Revenons à nos moutons: water will continue to be the root-cause of many problems until and unless we do something tangible to pull ourselves out of the "water-stressed" category as officially admitted in... the "Mauritius Strategy for Implementation National Assessment Report 2010".

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

I was thanking you for the links not for anything else ;-)

So the studies are there already, all that's missing is taking the decisions.

akagugo said...

"Isn't that getting 2 million m3 for a couple of billions less?"

Why not both? Staged at one-year intervals so that we can reduce pressure on public accounts and ensure that we pull ourselves out of the "water-stressed" category and ensure potential for growth is not hampered again while averting the folly of sitting on our hands/praying/waiting for rain. And not rely on the false sense of security that may be derived from knowing that Mare Longue will soon be supplementing Mare aux Vacoas, which is far from a sustainable solution.

Entretemps, pendant que la pluviosité reste déficitaire, on se perd en distractions, style roupie compétitive, hedging, branding...

Tic, tac, tic, tac...

Sanjay Jagatsingh said...

@akagugo:

Enn ti reflexion enba labutik: Bagatelle pe kut 3 fwa pli ser par met kub reservwar ki dexiem faz Midlands dam. Eski li normal sa? Sirtu ki USD ou EUR relativman feb la.

Se sir ki bizin omwin fer enn ti planning nivo tavern.

Ya, isi se distraction country.