Kasaï-central: Construction of Katende power plant 45% complete

Kinshasa, April 12, 2025(ACP).- Construction work on the Katende hydroelectric power station in Kasai Central, in the center of the Democratic Republic of Congo, is 45% complete, said the Minister of Hydraulic Resources on Friday in Kinshasa during a conciliation meeting on the progress of materials delivery.  “45% of the construction work on the Katende hydroelectric power station has been completed,” announced Teddy Lwamba, Minister of Hydraulic Resources and Electricity.  He stressed that the government’s intention is to speed up the work, in order to avoid the delay experienced in the first phase due to the cumbersome nature of a local bank.  To this end, Minister Lwamba received assurances from François Mutomb, Managing Director of the Congolese National Railway Company (SNCC), that equipment for the Katende power station would be supplied for its re-launching, pointing out that the SNCC had already transported 1,200 tons of materials. “It has to be said that, with the Minister, we’ve just done an overview of the progress of the Katende project for the electrification of the Kasai region,” said SNCC’s General Manager. “The Minister had given us a mission to move the wagons within 45 days. And at SNCC, in less than 25 days, we managed to move 68 wagons from Lubumbashi to Tshimbulu. So 58 have arrived in Tshimbulu, 5 in Lubumbashi and another 5 in Likasi”, he added.  Mr. Mutomb stressed that SNCC’s collaboration with the company is a long-term investment. “SNCC won’t gain from transport costs or penalties, but when the Katende dam is operational, we’ll have sprinkled the Kasai region with electricity. There will be a knock-on effect, with companies setting up operations centers and all these production units starting to bring their cargoes to SNCC. That’s when SNCC will win,” he says.  For Mr. François Mutomb, a company in difficulty like SNCC, managing to pay off 50 million US dollars for this project is enormous.  He added that once the rehabilitation work is complete, the Katende power plant will be able to supply 32 megawatts in its second phase, while the third phase will generate a capacity of 16 megawatts. This meeting took place in the context of the long-awaited imminent re-launching of work on the Katende hydroelectric power station. The project was to have been financed by India’s Exim Bank, but the Congolese government finally decided to rely on its own financing to speed up the work.