ABSTRACT
Pangani Falls is a Nordic dam project par excellence. The project was funded bilaterally through grants from the Norwegian, Finnish and Swedish aid agencies —NORAD (42 per cent), FINNIDA (33 per cent) and Sida (25 per cent)—at a cost of about US $100 million. It was studied by consultants from the three countries, and built by construction, electrical equipment and turbine companies from the same three. Pangani was commissioned in October 1994. Its owner TANESCO (the Tanzanian state utility) is supplying electricity to urban and industrial users, mostly in Tanga downstream. But the dam does not have enough water to run at full capacity, nor is it likely to do so in the future. The inadequate supply of water is not an unforeseen result of faulty design or of a sudden change in the weather. On the contrary, as early as 1989 Nordic consultants had documented intensive irrigation that diverted water upstream of the dam, and reported that ‘such irrigation [could] reduce the energy potential for the [project], and if [it increases] could effect economic viability’ (IVO/Norplan 1989a: 3-7).
