The meeting was organised by the Republic of DRC with the support of the African Development Bank, African Union and NEPAD Secretariat. The DRC Ambassador in South Africa, Bene M’Poko opened the round table. The conference was addressed by Bernard Zoba, African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Mandla Gantsho, African Development Bank Vice-President for Infrastructure, Private Sector and Regional Integration, Prof. Firmino Mucavele, Chief Executive of NEPAD and Admassu Tadesse, of the Development Bank of Southern Africa.

The speakers stressed the integrating nature of the Inga project, as well as the need to find the best ways of determining the options for updating and finalising the feasibility study on the development of the Inga site, including Inga 3 and Great Inga. Great Inga will have a generation capacity of 39 000 megawatts, offering the DRC the possibility of exporting electricity to the sub-region and North Africa. It will accelerate regional integration by providing adequate power supply to many African countries.

The DRC currently obtains its electricity supply from the Inga 1 and 2 stations built in 1972 and 1982, respectively. It currently has 1,775 megawatts of generating capacity at its Inga hydroelectric facility. The Inga 3 site if implemented could supply the whole sub-region, especially countries of the Southern African Development Community.

The international round table identified the need to pursue the following key objectives :

 Inform donors, potential investors, clients interested in electricity supply form Inga about the DRC’s energy policy and, in particular, about the potential of the Inga site as well as the Government’s intentions for the hydro-electric development of the Inga site ;

 Inform interested potential investors, promoters and potential electric power consumers about the procedures to be followed to officially express their interest in the project ;

 Institute a forum for potential investors and clients to express their interest in purchasing Inga-generated power and inform them about related projects existing downstream or which would need to be developed ;

 Seek the views of other development partners and parties concerned.

Source : nepad news - October 06, 2006