ANGOLA – Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah, has announced that the bank will invest US$1.3 billion to support development initiatives including a project to supply drinking water to Luanda from Bita.
The funds will be invested in priority projects for the country, notably the Lobito rail corridor project, which will require an investment of US$3 billion and the drinking water supply project for the capital Luanda, the cost of which is estimated at US$900 million.
The project is a mega drinking water initiative, and also one of the most important on the African continent in terms of cost and infrastructure.
Contracts for this project have already been awarded, notably to a consortium led by French giant Suez.
The aim of this mega-project is to strengthen the water supply to the populations of the capital from Bita, a locality 40 km from Luanda, where Suez has started the construction of a drinking water plant with a capacity of 260,000 m3 per day.
This plant will operate thanks to a water intake installed in the Kwanza river which passes near the capital Luanda before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.
“The aim of this mega-project is to strengthen the water supply to the populations of the capital from Bita, a locality 40 km from Luanda, where Suez has started the construction of a drinking water plant with a capacity of 260,000 m3 per day”
Suez is implementing the project in partnership with Mota Engil, a Portuguese construction company, and Soares da Costa, a civil construction company based in Porto, Portugal.
The project to supply drinking water to Luanda from Bita will also involve laying 82-kilometre of water mains to supply four new distribution lines in targeted peri-urban service areas, currently not supplied, south of the capital Luanda.
The main lines will also be extended to supply two existing but undersupplied distribution centres in the suburbs of Luanda and soon the communities of Camama and Benfica will no longer be supplied by tankers.
In addition to Afreximbank, the Luanda drinking water project which will benefit 7.5 million people is also financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Bird), a subsidiary of the World Bank Group, and by Bpifrance, a French public body for financing and business development.
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