In the light of the recent statement by Energy Minister Jeff Radebe I feel compelled to provide a different perspective on the Inga project (Grand Inga hydropower plan in DRC will happen, Radebe assures, May 8). The Inga Dam is the wrong way forward for the Democratic Republic of Congo and for SA. In 2013, then president Jacob Zuma signed the deal to purchase 2,500MW of power from Inga, but since then the project has stalled. The World Bank cancelled its involvement in the project in 2016 over governance concerns, and in 2017 the project’s promoters acknowledged it was not economically viable and proposed to double its size, setting the project back to square one. Today, Grand Inga is no closer to being built. Financiers are understandably skittish about investing billions of rand into one of the world’s most corrupt countries. What is clear is that the DRC would have to shoulder an immense debt burden with no hope of repaying it, and that the Inga project would be a losing proposit...
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