" The human cost of SA’s water lifeline: Lesotho communities go to court" 11 July 2025

The Katse Dam, the largest in the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) and a key water source for the Vaal Dam, which provides all Johannesburg’s drinking water, is at the centre of a constitutional case to be heard by the Lesotho High Court.

While hailed as a major African infrastructure success, the dam project has come at a high cost to communities, according to the applicants. More than 3,000 individuals and 889 registered businesses have now brought a case against the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) – tasked with implementing the LHWP – and its contractors.

In court papers, the applicants allege a series of injustices — including unpaid compensation, human rights violations, broken promises, and the failure to establish a promised community development fund

The LHWP arose from a 1986 treaty to transfer water from Lesotho to South Africa, while providing hydroelectric power and broader development opportunities, such as irrigation and tourism for Lesotho. [...] The applicants also allege that the LHDA never established the long-promised community development fund, and that the compensation provided does not account for the irreplaceable loss of communal resources. [...]

The losses, dating back to 1987, include communal grazing land, medicinal plants, wild vegetables, brushwood, and grasses — vital resources for survival in rural Lesotho. The consequences, they state, are dire: communities remain impoverished, their cattle are dying due to a critical lack of pastureland, and their overall standards of living are deteriorating.