SIR,—In criticising the United Federal Party's administration of the Government
of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, you can always tell when you have scored a bull's-eye, because the Minister concerned comes back at you with words like 'calumny.'
This is because the most successful publicity 'gim- mick' (to use another of Sir Malcolm Barrow's favourite expressions) of all time has been the identi- fication of the UFP with the Federation itself; so that in the minds of the public (in Britain as well as in Rhodesia) a criticism of the UFP is a criticism of the Federation, and approaches sedition, if not treason.
The other gimmick is to reply with a long series of half-truths and red herrings that need almost a volume to answer, and of this Sir Malcolm Barrow's letter on Kariba is a marvellous example. Thus, in a short letter, one can only answer two or three of his more outrageous claims.
It is significant, for example, that Sir Malcolm's letter quotes only the 1955 estimate of electricity costs for Kariba. Rather than tell us that the 1955 estimate was that Kariba current would cost 0.254d. per. unit, I wish he had told us what it actually does cost—and how much it will havC to be put up (a) because of the expense of Strengthening the dam wall, and (b) because the estimate of the rate of expansion of Federal industry, and hence also the consumption of power, was, in 1955, so grossly exaggerated.
'The process of jetting and grouting,' says Sir Malcolm, 'is a perfectly normal engineering practice.' Of course it is, if it is part of construction plans. But the present jetting and grouting at Kariba was no part of the original plan. It might have been envisaged in the original plan (and hence in the cost- ing), had a proper survey of the site ever been carried out. But it wasn't.
There was no need to prove the Kafue plan `to the satisfaction of the World Bank,' since Northern Rhodesia could then have completed the scheme from her own resources, and without recourse to the crippling loans that Kariba has involved.
The Kafue irrigation scheme to which Sir Malcolm refers would have been many years nearer realisa- tion had the power station been there and not at Kariba; since the Meshi-Teshi barrage was an essen- tial part of the whole, and without such a barrage the irrigation scheme will be impossible. Now the cost of its erection will simply add to the enormous capitalisation necessary if the Kafue Flats are ever to be cultivated.
Finally Sir Malcolm has not answered Mrs. Scott's main question, which was: When was the £400,000 survey on the Kariba site carried out, by whom, and with what result? And why has no mention ever been made of it in the Power Board report?
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