DRC: Country Partners with India to Build a Hydroelectric Plant in Kasai

By Eunice Kilonzo

Kinshasa---The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and India have signed a deal to build a hydroelectric plant in southern Congo. The $280 million deal will facilitate the building of a hydroelectric plant in the south of the vast central African country. The deal calls for India to cover about 60 per cent of the plant’s $280 million cost, with the DRC picking up the rest.

The work in the province of Kasai Occidental is due to begin in November and will take four years, Congo's energy minister, Gilbert Tshiongo, said late on Monday.

“The plant is expected to have a capacity of 65 megawatts when completed,” Tshiongo added.

“It is part of the government's plan to alleviate chronic power shortages” he continued.

 It comes at a time country where just 6 per cent of a population of nearly 71 million has access to electricity. The project thus seeks to address this problem as well as that of rampant power shortages and consequently develop the country’s infrastructure.

 "The agreement foresees an Indian contribution of $168 million dollars. The Congolese contribution is fixed at $112 million dollars," Congolese finance minister Matata Mponyo said, following a signing ceremony attended by president Joseph Kabila and representatives from India's Exim Bank in the Congolese city of Kananga late Monday.

Earlier on in the year, DRC had signed a similar deal worth $367 million with China. This is mainly due to the vast hydroelectric potential, owing to a network of powerful rivers that drain the forest-cloaked Congo basin.

In 2008, Congo and China signed a $9 billion deal to swap minerals for infrastructure projects. The total amount of the deal was reduced in 2009 to about $6 billion at the request of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which said the debt load was unsustainable.

Hydro Power is a form of renewable energy and is second largest source of electricity in the world accounting for roughly 20 per cent of the worldwide demand of electricity with around 800 GW of capacity installed. There is considerable potential still left and developing countries can be expected to install another 500 GW over the coming years. There is large unmet potential for generating cheap hydro power in Africa, India and China. Most of the hydro power potential has already been tapped in developed countries of Europe and USA.