Congo ‘Won't Borrow a Dollar’ to Build $18 Billion Showpiece Dam
- Consortium building hydropower project to raise the finance
- Plans raised concern over nation’s debt load, local impact
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A much-vaunted hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of Congo will cost almost $18 billion, with the investors building and running the facility raising the finance themselves, a government agency said.
The Chinese-Spanish consortium that plans to develop the Inga 3 dam will “mobilize” the funds to construct the 11,000-megawatt facility, according to the agency’s director. While the world’s largest cobalt producer has been promising the project for a decade to bridge a widening energy shortfall that’s checked output from the mining industry, as well as to export power to other African nations, there’s been concern it may load the impoverished nation with unmanageable debt.