Grand Inga Project is the next nuclear deal and should be scrapped 

6 November 2018

The report on the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) tabled in the Energy Portfolio Committee today correctly cautions against importing 2500 Megawatts of electricity from the planned Grand Inga Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

This is to be welcomed. It is a reflection of growing opposition in South Africa and the DRC to the Grand Inga project that was agreed to during the Zuma-era. Like the nuclear deal, the Grand Inga project is over-priced and susceptible to corruption and other risks.   

We therefore support the Portfolio Committee’s view that the Minister of Energy, Jeff Radebe, must assess the impact of the Grand Inga project in the light of comments received from a number of stakeholders.

We think it is particularly important that the Minister and the public are made aware of the huge additional cost of importing hydro-electric power from the DRC. A 2017 study by researchers at the University of California-Berkeley found that importing power from Inga 3 would cost more than R400m per annum than domestic power generation.

This means that South African consumers will need to pay even more for their electricity in the years ahead, to the benefit of the Spanish and Chinese consortia who stand to derive significant benefits from the project.

These companies will benefit to the detriment of the 30 000 people in the DRC who are set to be displaced by the Grand Inga project. Their lives and their livelihoods are at risk. There is also a very real threat to the region’s biodiversity as a result of the destruction of aquatic plant and animal species of the Congo River.

We trust that Minister Jeff Radebe will take the concerns raised around the Grand Inga Project seriously, and amend the draft Integrated Resource Plan accordingly.

We didn’t need nuclear power, and we don’t need the Grand Inga project. The time has come to make decisions about our energy mix based on sound economic reasoning and humanitarian considerations.

Issued by Ange Asanzi, Spokesperson for International Rivers, 6 November 2018