Congo Reverts to Smaller Plan for Inga Plant, President Says
Congo Reverts to Smaller Plan for Inga Plant, President Says
The Democratic Republic of Congo will proceed with a smaller version of the Inga III hydropower project and expand the facility over time, President Felix Tshisekedi said.
The Inga III dam, which will begin as a 4,800 megawatt plant, will have its capacity increased to 7,500 megawatts and 11,000 megawatts eventually, Tshisekedi told lawmakers in his first state of the nation address Friday. Once completed, Inga would be the biggest hydroelectric power station on the continent.
The facility was initially envisaged as a 4,800 megawatt project in feasibility studies conducted in 2013. A year ago, two groups of Spanish and Chinese developers submitted a joint proposal for a 11,050 megawatt dam that would cost about $14 billion, saying that the smaller version isn’t economically viable.
The government’s latest approach would give “us the latitude to combine some of these phases, given the fact that the demand for this energy is available and very urgent, especially to serve the development of a factory for aluminum electrolytic production,” Tshisekedi said, without elaborating. Congolese officials will meet with the African Development Bank in Ivory Coast before Dec. 20 to sign an agreement on the construction of the project, he said.
Tshisekedi, the 56-year-old who came to power in January, has pledged to lift millions of people out of poverty over the next five years through investments in water, electricity and infrastructure. More than three quarters of the population of about 81 million people make do with less than $1.90 a day, according to the United Nations.
In Friday’s address to lawmakers, Tshisekedi said the government wants to amend legislation that requires agricultural projects to be majority owned by Congolese nationals or companies. Congo imports 85% of its agricultural products, even though it has 80 million hectares (198 million acres) of arable land, he said.
The legislative revision will make the sector “more welcoming to investors,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael J. Kavanagh in Kinshasa at mkavanagh9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Andre Janse van Vuuren, Stanley James
©2019 Bloomberg L.P.