Apower project that could light up 15 countries across the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is facing fierce and renewed resistance from environmentalists and concerned parties backed by solid academic data. Situated south west of Kinshasa where the Congo River thunders over the Inga Falls, statistics in support of building a third dam on the world’s deepest and second biggest river after the Amazon, are staggering. Variously referred to as Inga 3 because of two other dams at the falls, the new dam would generate close on 40 000 megawatts of power, almost twice the 22 500 megawatts produced by China’s Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s biggest generator of hydropower. Not only would Inga 3 spread power through the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where only about 10% of the population is on the nation’s dilapidated grid, but it would fire up industrial potential from the sub-Saharan west coast all the way east and south in a spider web network of electrical reach. In a nutshell: the Grand Inga Project is the kind of large-scale engineering endeavour that could re-invent the region. No wonder SADC’s higher ups refer to it as Africa’s biggest game-changer, bigger in scope and scalable potential than South Africa’s gold boom and the construction of the Suez Canal. So why hasn’t it happened yet? Because of cost, plain and simple. With an initial once-off price tag of $80bn attached to it, it’s the kind of project that casts a pall over similar big-spend projects and, some say, should be seen in the same light as the infamous power deal that Jacob Zuma so desperately tried to seal with Russia before he lost his looter’s licence. Hammering further nails into the coffin of Inga 3 is the government’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) which makes a clear case against the cost of importing electricity all the way from the DRC. By basing its findings on scientific data accumulated during an incisive study by the University of California, Berkeley, the IRP makes a convincing case for sustaining South Africa’s grid as it is and building it out through tapping into solar, wind and gas possibilities. More importantly, and because South Africa signed up as an anchor investor for the project, researchers found that local consumers would have an additional R400m added annually to the country’s electricity bill. Alarmingly, the cost of bringing the electricity down south, through Zambia and Zimbabwe, hasn’t been factored into the overall price equation. The Berkeley study found though that an expected R13bn, once again billable to South Africa, could result from every year Inga 3 is under construction, and already it doesn’t look like the 2024 switch-on deadline is feasible. So why then, given that there are other far more viable means to keep the lights on, is South Africa still part of plans to build a dam on the Congo River? Because, and this should come as no surprise, Zuma’s signature appears on a South African undertaking to import at least 2500 megawatts of Inga electricity. Is it any wonder then that environmental lobby group, International Rivers, is working tirelessly to get South Africa to withdraw from the project? Apart from the 30 000 people that the dam would replace, it has built a solid argument against Inga 3, stating that it’s been placed on the table to enrich the Chinese and Spanish construction companies involved and that, because of the backhanders and related graft from the start, resulted in the World Bank withdrawing as a headline sponsor back in 2016. And yet, despite all the evidence of the project being a massive infrastructural project that the region probably doesn’t need at the moment, the Grand Inga Dam Hydropower Power Project Treaty that Zuma approved remains in place. Energy minister Jeff Radebe has stated though that he is seriously noting the expensive consequences of Inga 3, a dam some cynics say will throw a financial lifeline to Inga 1 and 2 which were built when Mobutu Sese Seko still had Zaire in his dictatorial grip, and which have been steadily becoming derelict since they were first built in 1972 and ’82. An academic report states: “Energy technology is rapidly advancing, including micro-hydro dams and solar batteries. With the political will of African leaders and the support of the international community, smaller-scale grids, locally managed and easily integrated, could be a boon to the African people and break the cycle of rich African resources being used for futile and unnecessary projects.” Having had access to these insights by academics from various American institutions such as George Washington University, not to mention Berkeley’s research, it begs the question why South African ministers and their private partners still dream of a mega dam on the Congo River. Said International Rivers: “We didn’t need nuclear power, and we don’t need the Grand Inga project.”
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The new dam would generate almost twice the 22 500 megawatts produced by China’s Three Gorges Dam.
