Roger K. Asani.
Dear Sir, I totally disagree with some parts of your mind-stirring editorial on page 10 of the Daily Sun of April 2, 2014.
Importing electricity from the DR – Congo is just a commercial act, like any other international transaction, a give and take ritual in which the financial muscle, the abundance of manpower and the quality of infrastructure in the fatherland of those involved are not necessarily flaunted. Chest drumming is usually avoided. You pay this much, you take that much.
After all, the United States of America, the European Union, PR – China, Japan, etc, buy and import, but also sell and export different things from the tiniest countries in the world, even from the less developed ones, as far as the buyers can pay. Period.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), that vast subcontinent in the very heart of Africa is not a “small and less endowed country” as the editorial put it. Unless the writer confuses it with the Republic of Congo/Brazzaville, DRC’s neighbor to the west across the River Congo, a sister smaller country in size but heavier with crude oil exported.
DR – Congo straddles the Equator, sprawling over 2,350,000km2 of territory. In Africa for the time being, by her size, DRC is second only to Algeria where 80% of the territory is desert. With more than 10,000 (ten thousand) ocean (1), lakes and rivers, among which is the majestic famous Congo River.
The Congo Basin is home to the only remaining rain forest still intact in the whole world. Hundreds of millions of hectares of good pasture fed by this abundant water carpet the country from East to West and from North to South.
There is no single square inch of desert, no whiff of harmattan throughout the year there. The population of DRC is estimated to be a solid 70 million people.
DR – Congo’s soil contains all known useful metals in large quantities. And, to the general delight of many but utter consternation of others, important deposits of oil and gas were recently discovered.
Inga project is the strongest hydroelectric plant in Africa and third in the whole world by its output. When completed, it will provide cheap, affordable and stable electricity to each hamlet in this continent and later on to Spain, France and Italy.
But DR – Congo’s financial muscle is still weak and unable to complete, all alone, that pharaonic work. That is why South Africa, being the most industrialized nation south of the Sahara and hungry for electric power, is coming in to the rescue. The Rainbow Nation intends to put $25bn on the table to refurbish Inga I, Inga II and complete Inga III satisfactorily. It is expected that the electricity from Inga dams will now allow the South Africans to finally close their old and many highly polluting coal-powered generating plants.
Awakening from decades of wars and unrest, the Democratic Republic of Congo will surely use the proceeds of the transaction with the “strong financial muscles” hurrying in from each direction to transform and develop the country of Rumba, the gentle Giant on the Equator, as promised without chest drumming the young, patriotic, dynamic and enigmatic leader, His Excellency, The President of DRC Joseph Kabila Kabange.
We believe it will be done!!
(Kasuku wa Ukweli)
Dr. Asani writes via kasukupapa@yahoo.co.uk
The Source: The Sun News Online, Crescent University Mirror Posted by Fisayo (Editorial Department)
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