The Story of Akosombo Dam




Sir Albert Kitson, the geologist who first
discovered bauxite in Ghana and
in 1915 noted Akosombo as a future
hydro-electric dam site.
 


- ..A Historical Perspective

The idea of the development of hydro-electric project at Akosombo begins with Albert - later Sir Albert Kitson, an Austrian Jew whose first arrival in the Gold Coast in 1913 set about opening up vital prospects for the mineral wealth of Ghana.

Sir Albert Kitson, a Geologist had been appointed by the British Colonial Office to establish a new Geological Survey Department with the purpose of discovering what mineral wealth, in addition to gold, lay concealed beneath the forests and mountain tops of the still unknown interior of the Gold Coast. He found the first traces of bauxite a hundred miles inland within a year of his arrival. Later he found rich industrial diamond deposits at Akwatia, and iron ore deposits at Shiene, conveniently close to Lake Volta.


Duncan Rose, the South African mining
engineer, who first investigated
on the ground of the hydro-electric
potential of the Volta.
 
James Moxon, in his book, Volta - Man's Greatest Lake, which provides graphic details of the dam's historical background, planning, financing and building writes about Sir Albert Kitson: "Probably no other geologist has so many exploited geological discoveries to his name." On April 24, 1915, Sir Albert Kitson, was engaged on a rapid canoe voyage down the Volta, as part of a countrywide survey. "I noticed on entering the narrow gorge below Ajena", he recorded, "that it was an ideal place for a dam."

Writing ten years later in an official bulletin outlining the mineral and water- power resources of the Gold Coast, Kitson, calculated the energy output of the future hydro-electric dam. He envisaged the consequent lake being at least extensive enough to provide water transport down the Afram stretch for the enormous bauxite deposits sufficient enough to manufacture millions of tons of aluminum. It was the idea of a raw bauxite and potential water power that pointed to the possibility of an economic project.

"During his leave in 1917 and while in France, Kitson took the opportunity of visiting bauxite mines in the South of France, as well as a hydro-electric project in Scotland, so as to understand clearly the technical problems involved in all stages of aluminium production. Armed with the necessary data he returned to the Gold Coast and prepared a detailed proposal for the use of Volta Hydro-electric power to process bauxite into alumimium, and in 1924 additional proposals were added to canalize the Lower Volta and irrigate the Accra Plains. This might have emerged as one of Governor Guggisberg's greatest triumphs. But he was already committed to such memorable development projects as Takoradi Harbour, Achimota College and Korle Bu Hospital as well as widespread motor road construction programmes for the movement of cocoa and consequently the project remains in its drawer," Moxon notes.

Kitson's proposals for harnessing the Volta was not limited to Akosombo. He pointed also to the suitability of constructing a dam on the Black Volta at Bui. He saw this as the means of electrifying a future railway to the north. He also had proposals for mini hydro dams from the costal rivers, the Tano, the Pra and several others.

Duncan Rose, a South African mining engineer who came across Kitson's 1925 bulletin in the public library in Johnesburg in 1938 came to the Gold Coast and was the first who investigated on the ground the hydro-electric potential of the Volta. He formed a number of aluminum consortia between 1939 to 1949 which brought the Volta River Project one stage nearer to reality.

"Indeed Duncan Rose had clearly attached great importance to securing goodwill at Government level. What he had failed to do, and what he had probably never seriously thought it necessary to do, was to secure the same amount of support for his scheme from the chiefs, the politicians and the people of the Gold coast", Moxon explains.
 

 
© 2007 Volta River Authority - Last Updated: February 2010