Thai rainmakers

Let’s be careful before Thai rainmakers do their thing

Recently the nation was informed of Government plans to bring in rain making experts from Thailand who could help to create rain over Mtera Dam in Iringa/Dodoma.

The good news was given by none other than the Prime Minister, Edward Lowassa, during his working tour in two countries, Thailand and Vietnam.

According to the Government’s statement, if the project succeeds, it would help to fill in Mtera Dam and in the process enable the Tanzania Electric Supply Company, TANESCO, to make use of the water from the dam in generating power through the Kidatu Power Plant in Mogorogo region.

We have used the words ‘if the project succeeds’ because it is not already given that the Thai rain makers would straight away go to the area and do their thing.

They will firstly try to find out whether it is, in the first place, feasible to carry out such a project.

And this is because conditions that have helped them create rain in their country may be different from those pertaining in and around Mtera Dam.

It looks like our Government is really trying hard to try to find out solutions to our problems.

The reason why it is presently obsessed with rain makers and Mtera Dam is that failure in the two past rain seasons’ to fill the Mtera Dam to its capacity has led to the present nightmare of power rationing.

As we have had occasion to point out a few days ago, the present power rationing is so serious that we have never had the like of it since independence over forty years ago.

Yet, much as we would like the Thai rain makers to come and help us, we would like to caution our Government against such projects.

Our fears have more to do with our environment than anything else.

Yes, how sure are we that this rain making process is not going to have adverse effect on our environment?

We all know that one of the main reasons behind Mtera Dam’s failure to get its fill of water was due to our own human degradation at sources of the Great Ruaha which has lately ceased its greatness.

If that is the case, why do we want to embark on a project that could end up causing more problems to our environment than our earlier own degradation of the Great Ruaha?

We would like to call on the Government not to embark on a project which could in helping us to solve what may be a temporary problem land us into a permanent problem.

If the Thai have such a technology, the United States which has had fires in their forests in California and other parts of that country could long have sought for such assistance from Thai rain makers in order to put out such fires!

Let us not forget what happened in Lake Victoria when some scientists introduced Nile Perch only to wipe out Tilapia.

It is our hope that before the Thai rain makers do their magic, we would have satisfied ourselves, scientifically, that their technology is not going to land us into another problem.

Ends.