Building on a 1915 proposal by a British surveyor, Albert. Kitson, the South African engineer Duncan Rose formed West African Aluminium Limited. See "The Volta River Project," African Affairs 55, no. 221 (1956): 287.
R. Lane Clark and Stephan F. Miescher, Ghana’s Electric Dreams, 2022. Film available online at ➝. Nkrumah thanked the people impacted by the project in his speech at the inauguration of the Akosombo Dam on 22 January 1966 saying, “I would like to pay tribute to the thousands of families who were called upon to move from their traditional homes in the interest of the nation. Today, as we inaugurate Volta power, they can share in the joys of the country, in our sense of achievement, and in our gratitude for the sacrifices which have made this project possible."
The dam was first conceived by Albert Kitson, who had an idea to harness the Volta River to process bauxite. Duncan Rose, in 1938, then built on this idea and formed a private company to secure bauxite and dam concessions. The British government commissioned surveys of the Volta River in 1948 (Gold Coast. Volta River Area. Scale 1:5000, Directorate of Colonial Surveys) and in 1956, commissioned Sir William Halcrow and Partners to produce a report. (Sir William Halcrow & Partners, “The Volta River project. {Vol. 3}, Engineering report to the Preparatory Commission, H.M.S.O. for the governments of the U.K. and the Gold Coast”). See also Stephen Miescher’s A Dam for Africa: Akosombo Stories from Ghana (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2022).
With the British Government out of the picture, Ghana’s National Assembly passed the Volta River Development Act in 1961, which created the Volta River Authority (VRA) as a statutory public utility corporation to deliver the dam. A further study was made based on Halcrow’s report, and it was advised that the dam moves almost four kilometers downstream from Ajena to Akosombo to cut costs. Kaiser Aluminum agreed to part finance the project, provided that the use of Ghanaian bauxite was deferred in the first years of the smelter's operations with aluminum imported from the Americas. The World Bank also contributed a loan of $47 million for the project with the remaining cost met by the Ghanaian Government. $47 million loan for Volta project in Ghana, 8 February 1962, Bank press release no. 62/9, ➝.
Great Britain, Colonial Office. 1952. Volta River Aluminium Scheme. London: H.M. Stationery Office.
Clark and Miescher, Ghana’s Electric Dreams.
Dente is the god of the Krachi. The priest acts as a public intermediary for the god.
Rutgerd Boelens, Arturo Escobar, Karen Bakker, Lena Hommes et al., “Riverhood: Political Ecologies of Socionature Commoning and Translocal Struggles for Water Justice,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 50, no. 3 (2022): 1125–1156.
“Commonwealth,” Nana Biamah-Ofosu, George Massoud and Sandra Githinji. See “British Council announces team for British Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia,” British council, April 3, 2024, ➝.
Pandora's Box, episode 5, “Black Power,” by Adam Curtis, aired July 9, 1992, on BBC Two.
Arundhati Roy, The Greater Common Good, (Mumbai: IndiaBook, 1999).
An idiom about the presence of the Mississippi River. It is derived from Mark Twain’s Autobiography of Mark Twain where he notes, “the Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise.” Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 3: The Complete and Authoritative Edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015).
Between 2011 and 2015, the Canadian company, Triton Logging, operating in Ghana as Clark Sustainable Resource Development (CSRD), headed by former Canadian Prime Minster, Joe Clark (1979–80) in 2007 negotiated an agreement with the government of Ghana to harvest, process, and market the trees in the Volta Lake. This is an industry worth up to $3 billion – a single tree could fetch up to $60,000. It was positioned as a sustainable development and solving a problem of the danger to the lake’s transport system and fishing industries; under the agreement 80 percent of the profits will go to CSRD while Ghana gets the remainder.
Kete Krachi Timber Recovery submitted a proposal to the French government to supply timber for the rebuilding of the Notre-Dame Cathedral after the fire in April 2019 which destroyed its spire and roof. See “Notre-Dame: How an underwater forest in Ghana could help rebuild a Paris icon,” BBC News, October 6, 2019, ➝.
“Volta Pavilion,” Juergen Strohmayer and Glenn DeRoché, n.d., ➝.
“Between Sand and Water: The Underwater Forest of Lake Volta,” a conversation between Ofoe Amegavie, a Ghanaian photographer, and Tetteh, a fisherman on Volta. Living Water by The Or Foundation, n.d., ➝.
Hannah le Roux, “Modern Architecture in Post-Colonial Ghana and Nigeria,” Architectural History 47 (2004): 361–92.
Łukasz Stanek, “Post-colonial education in Kumasi,” Architectural Review 9 (2022): 88–91; Albert Brenchat-Aguilar, “Functional Environs: Austin Tetteh’s Situated World(mak)ing Planning Practice, 1950–80,” Architectural Theory Review 26 no. 3 (2022): 458–85; Kąrî'kạchä Seid'ou “‘Hand and Eye Work’ in Gold Coast Colonial Modernism: A Genealogical History of Ghana’s Fossilized Art Curriculum,” in New Horizons in Education and Social Studies Vol.2. London, ed. Vlasta Hus (West Bengal: Book Publisher International, 2020), 136–61; and Łukasz Stanek, Architecture in Global Socialism: Eastern Europe, West Africa, and the Middle East in the Cold War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020).
Robert Chambers ed., The Volta Resettlement Experience, (London: Pall Mall Press, Volta River Authority, University of Science and Technology (Ghana)-Faculty of Architecture, 1970).
Patrick Wakely, Kamil Khan Mumtaz et al., “Bui Resettlement Area Survey,” Occasional Report no.4, Faculty of Architecture, KNUST, Kumasi, Ghana, (Kumasi: KNUST Press, 1966)
Pandora's Box, episode 5, “Black Power,”; “This is the New Ghana Kwame Nkrumah is Building,” Evening News, 21 May 1963.
Clark and Miescher, Ghana’s Electric Dreams.
“The Volta River Project,” Great Britain Board of Trade, London, 1956.
