I had a chance to tour the Karuma Dam construction project in late 2023. It was amazing seeing mega infrastructures built 100 meters below the surface.
The amazing buildings sit below the water table (Nile River water). I was fortunate to accompany the parliamentary team on a fact-finding mission to determine the project's readiness.
My first visit was in 2018, and it was scary to travel about 20km underground through the tunnels that pass beneath Karuma town toward the western part where the dam empty water.
In an interaction with some engineers during the visit, I was told that once all 6 turbines are turned on, over 90% of the water will be channeled to run the turbines and it will eventually divert pretty much all the from the original channel and leave the bridge connecting Kiryandongo district and Nwoya district with less or no water.
Karuma Dam mega is built at $1.7 billion courtesy of Export and Import (EXIM) Bank of China loan to Uganda. Has a Capacity of generating 600MW of electricity.