CEC to pump $140m into Kabompo Gorge By Shamaoma Musonda T

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CEC to pump $140m into Kabompo Gorge

By Shamaoma Musonda

THE Copperbelt Energy Corporation (CEC) will inject more than US$140 million into the Kabompo Gorge hydro-power station which it expects to complete in 2014.

CEC executive chairperson, Hanson Sindowe said yesterday the project, which would produce 40 megawatts, was underway with construction expected to start in the first quarter of 2011.

He said presently, ground work was being laid and included sensitising the community and chiefs about the project on the benefits and effects of the project.

“We are investing $140 million into the Kabompo Gorge with actual construction expected to start next year and we should be done by 2014. This is very important for Zambia because we are headed for a power deficit,” he said.

Mr Sindowe said Zambia would mostly be hit by a power deficit in the next two years and the Kabompo project was important to CEC.

Once complete, the power dependence would shift from Kariba and Kafue Gorge.

Zambia, like the entire southern Africa, is facing a power deficit and the Zambian case was worsened by the increase in the number of mines and mining-related activities.

The North-Western Province has added to the challenge by turning into a mining province in the last five years and CEC’s Kabompo Gorge comes as a strategic plant.

He said because of the size of the project and the amount involved, his company would source most of the required money from overseas development banks.

He said Zambian banks were commercial and, apart from not having the capacity to fund the programme, they did not have the patience to wait for a repayment of about 20 years.

“This is a long-term project and there are no shortcuts to this and we have to go bit by bit and then we are challenged on where to source money from and at a good interest rate. As you know, our commercial banks can’t fund such a project,” he said.

He said once the Kabompo Gorge was functional, the 40 megawatts it would be producing would be connected to the main CEC power grid which supplies power to the mines on the Copperbelt.

He was happy that CEC was expanding from a utility company that buys power to one that was generating its own power, a move he said would help create several jobs and make the power situation better.