I've made it to Russian newspaper! Thanks to Olga Bokhina for article
Also, as it's x-mass time:
For this x-mass I'd like to wish you all neverending smile, happiness and a lot of time which you can share with your closest people. Stay in good health and enjoy year 2015 with great weather, always good water levels and safe trips!
Winter trainings here are full on! Getting all from winter that is possible will make your season kick off better then ever. Right now Im in cycle with 3 pool trainings, 3 gymnastics classes, 1 gym, 1 running and 1 swimming a week. Also everyday i do home workout based on bodyweights. What do you do for winter? ;)
Recently, i've made it to newspaper aswell!
The article was written by my friend - Szymon Wantulok and photo was taken by Tomasz Lebiedowicz.
Cool to make it to one of the greatest saleability newspaper.
Also i would like to add here text about Isimba Dam, from source: https://wazaonline.com/en/economy/isimba-costly-dam
Despite objections from local residents, environmental groups, and tour operators, the Ugandan government plans to go ahead with the construction of a third hydroelectric dam across the Nile. This Isimba dam will end white-water tourism in the region. But Ugandans might end up also paying for it in other ways…
“Have you heard about the new dam?” asks George, when we zoom down Jinja’s main road. “It’s very bad.”
As a boda-boda driver, George makes most of his money driving tourists back and forth to the various campsites scattered along the Nile. And like many locals, George is afraid he’ll lose most of his income when Isimba is built. The dam’s reservoir will flood most of the Nile’s rapids, shutting down the white-water rafting business that makes the eastern Ugandan city of Jinja famous.
With annual revenue of 1.4 billion dollars, tourism is currently Uganda’s top source of foreign currency – with rafting accounting for a large proportion of that. Last year, over 19,000 tourists visited Jinja and the end of rafting will be a financial blow to the town. The shockwaves are likely to be felt throughout the tourism industry that, directly or indirectly, employs over half a million Ugandans.
Power for development
Nevertheless, the government feels it’s considering the bigger picture. There is a growing demand for energy throughout East Africa and the Nile is one of the few sources that can provide cheap and clean power.
“Why does Uganda develop these dams? Are they for decoration purposes, or are they meant to serve the larger national interest?” asks Matovu Bukenya, spokesperson for the Ministry of Energy. “At some point our power supply was so low that Uganda was barely producing any energy at all. And yet we need power for development purposes. If you were an investor, you’d want a source of energy that is sustainable and affordable.”
The big unknown
White-water enthusiasts aren’t the only people critical of Isimba. Dickens Kamugisha, director of the African Institute for Energy Governance, fears Ugandans might end up paying for the dam in other ways.
“Even government officials are concerned about how the Ugandan and Chinese government are negotiating this project,” says Kamugisha. “With Isimba, they have agreed that a Chinese company is going to construct the dam, and the Chinese government is providing the funds. But we haven’t actually gotten the money. And the terms and conditions of the funding still have to be determined. But the Ugandan government has already agreed and entered into a contract.”
Since the government essentially signed a blank document, Kamugisha fears that, depending on how the details will be worked out, Isimba might actually drive up prices for the ordinary consumer. This has happened before: Bujagali dam, completed in 2012, was supposed to provide 250 megawatt of cheap power. Instead, prices shot up. And, at a cost of 3 million per megawatt, the construction of Bujagali was more than twice as expensive as comparable projects in the region.
Kayakers and spectators at the yearly Nile River Festival
Trouble everywhere
Uganda has a difficult history when it comes to its hydroelectric power. In 2012, two whistle-blowers involved in the construction of Karuma dam, which will be built downstream of Isimba, claimed that the dam did not meet international standards. Moreover, the estimated output was based on the record-high water levels of 1962, while in fact the water-level of Lake Victoria is dropping due to global warming. Later, members of the oversight committee were accused of taking bribes to keep the Chinese companies in the bidding process.
“To make it even worse, the company that got the contract for Isimba is the same company that had gotten the contract for Karuma-dam,” says Kamugisha. “And it had provided very wrong information on the capacity of previous projects it had implemented. So from the start you are dealing with a company you can’t trust.”
The Chinese connection
Bukenya feels that people are reading too much in the Chinese involvement. “It’s a Chinese company: the Chinese are into everything,” he says. “Because people from the West set up conditions that are very hard to fulfil. One of these is financing. The European Union gave us money at a rate of about 5 percent and China said ‘We’ll give you this money at around 3 percent’. Which one would you pick?”
But Kamugisha disagrees. To him, the construction of Isimba signals that Ugandan officials found another, easier source of income. “The government, I think, is tired of Western companies who come here and start going ‘human rights and what not’. The Chinese companies are not interested in those human rights matters. They just want the business,” he says.
But giving the keys to Uganda’s power production to the Chinese could become costly. “You’ll discover that sooner or later, we’ll have a monopoly of Chinese companies that are controlling the economy,” says Kamugisha. “And I don’t think that as a country you’d want that.”
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