The Inga Dam project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been work in progress for more than 50 years.
<div id="attachment_267" style="width: 222px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-267" class="wp-image-267 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/043_BGA11475-212x300.jpg" alt="" width="212" height="300" />DRC CONGO BELGIUM OFFICIAL VISIT DAY3</div>
The first feasibility studies for the initiative being investigated in the 1960s. The construction of Inga I, the first of four stages of the venture, was commissioned in 1972. The project is intended for completion sometime between 2020 and 2025 and could cost up to$80 billion. The Inga hydropower scheme is touted as being the solution to Africa’s energy woes—it is thought that when complete it could generate as much as 45,000 megawatts—more than South Africa, the biggest producer on the continent.
On the Inga Dam rests new projects, like BHP Billiton’s $5 billion aluminum smelter project, which could consume as much as 2,000MW.
“The major shortage of power is stopping development in many sectors,” says Thierry Naweji Kankwala, chairman of the South Africa-DRC Chamber of Commerce.
Capital is the biggest issue. A slice of a $100 billion green energy fund  could emerge from the COP17 talks in Durban and that could help.
Another one of the comlications is the structure of the finance for the project. In 2004, the Western Power Corridor, or Westcor, a cluster of African countries including the  DRC, Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, signed a memorandum of understanding  to finance Inga III, but in 2009 the government of DRC changed its mind and turned to  private investors.
Environmental concerns such as deforestation have also been raised. The World Energy Council estimates that the project could save 100 million tons of carbon being spewed into the atmosphere.
The completion of the Inga Dam project could be a coup for the continent with transmission lines planned as far afield as Egypt and Europe.
“The project will have a big impact in the continent, especially in the Southern African countries (Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and others),” says Kankwala.
&nbsp;

Damming Investment

Rwanda’s post-genocide recovery has gone through many hands, but there is one big hand to reckon with—that of entrepreneur Said Sekoko Hatari.
Hatari may not be the richest man in Rwanda, but he is among Kigali’s cash kings. Born to a poor family, he grew up in Uganda as a refugee. One of the bitter legacies of Rwanda’s troubled past is that many of its people grew up sheltering outside the country.
Exile was where Hatari started in business, at the tender age of 20, as a truck driver working for Somalis. He was transporting construction materials from Kisumu in Kenya to missionaries living nearby. He quit the job to trade spare parts and coffee. He made mistakes along the way, including losing $1 million in the coffee business.
More than 30 years on, Hatari, who also served in the Rwandan army, is the king of hospitality and construction in Kigali with a number of business partnerships at his elbow.
“In partnerships, people come with their own money and borrowing connections. When you are alone, you get exhausted,” he says.
Hatari is the executive director of Doyelcy Ltd, founded in 2006, one of the largest firms in Rwanda and under valuation by Ernst &amp; Young. The company may list on the Rwanda Stock Exchange or issue a corporate bond to raise capital for investment in its core businesses of hospitality, property, insurance, renewable energy and agriculture.
Doyelcy is co-investing in hospitality and construction projects in Rwanda along with Dubai World, Chinese investors and Sudhir Ruparelia, one of the richest men in Uganda.
The prime project is the Kigali City Tower, which will be the tallest building in Rwanda and a potent symbol of reconstruction less than two decades after dead bodies littered the streets.
The 1994 genocide took more than 800,000 lives in 100 days. It shattered the country’s infrastructure, as well as its soul. From roads to government offices, private businesses and homes, to water pipes and electric poles—the country needed huge investment to build afresh; money that the government did not have.
Seventeen years later, Rwanda is one of the world’s success stories, with an annual average growth rate of about 8%. It was ranked the top global business reformer in the World Bank’s Doing Business Report in 2010. This was the first time a country from sub-Saharan Africa—the region with the highest poverty levels in the world—won such an accolade.
The tower of Kigali is a bold manifestation of this surge of confidence. It will bring scarce high-end office and retail space to Rwanda as the country plans to position itself as the business-friendly Switzerland of East Africa. Tenants are signing up for 20 floors; they include Rwanda’s plush coffee shop, Bourbon Street; Apple; Kenya’s Nakumatt; and South Africa’s Mr Price.
Ernst &amp; Young valued the tower at $33 million, which also makes it the most expensive landmark in Rwanda.
In another project, costing at least $200 million, Doyelcy is also co-investing with Ruparelia in a modern tax park and commercial buildings in Kigali. Then there is a $60 million five-star hotel with Chinese investors. The 254-room Kigali Marriot will be the largest hotel in Rwanda.
This year, the Central Bank says the economy may grow by more than 7.5%,  with strong recovery in the agriculture and service sectors, in a land where it takes one day to register a business. Inflation is easing and the financial sector grows stronger as more regional banks set up shop in Kigali.
This year, Rwanda expects investments to grow to $550 million, from more than $300 million last year.
Construction and hospitality are the fastest growing sectors in the country. In the first six months of 2011, construction rose by 54.6% compared to 28.7% for the same period last year.
“I believe that the future of this economy is mainly its expansion, going beyond borders as it reduces trade obstacles and introduces new markets,” says Hatari.
Although the construction sector is growing, Hatari says it faces setbacks from a lack of skilled labour and construction materials like cement. There is also a question over long-term finance from the banks.
“Finance is still a challenge and I think it will remain a challenge,” he says.
The good news is that Rwanda relishes a challenge.

From A Truck Driver To  A King Of Kigali

In Hotel Continental’s restaurant along the bay of the Angolan capital Luanda, Russo Flora exudes energy, enthusiasm and a deep-seated faith in his country. “Angolans have a natural talent for business and commerce,” is the first thing he says. “During communism and the civil war, food here was very, very scarce.
<div id="attachment_131" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-131" class="size-large wp-image-131" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Russo-15x22.5cm-0029-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="711" />Flora Russo</div>
We’ve learned to improvise and survive under all circumstances. To me, being an entrepreneur is to create.” Thirty-three-year-old Flora, married with one son, was born and raised in the Angolan capital of Luanda. After studying English in South Africa, he won a sponsorship from the Angolan Fishing Ministry to study civil engineering in London. In 2002, he accepted a job as a senior property consultant at English estate agency, Bairstow Eves, and soon became the best salesman at their northern office. In 2003 he became senior land investment advisor at English Land Partnership.
“All that was part of my strategy to become a property entrepreneur,” he says. But then his father, George Flora, fell ill. Flora decided to move back to Angola, where in 2006, at the age of 26 he took over his father’s small consulting-engineering firm, Gabeng. George Flora became Angola’s Construction Minister in 1984 and founded the business in 1990. Russo Flora now owns Gabeng together with his mother.
“I had to decide whether to remain a small company, or to take Gabeng to a different level and transform it into the group of companies that it is today.” Three months later, Flora closed a contract for an infrastructure and sewage network in Luanda, called Projeto Morar, worth $600,000. It was a tall order for a company with few engineers. “I used to wear the contractors’ boots in the morning, take a quick shower, and then put on my engineers’ suit.
I was also our consultant and commercial director.” His hard work paid off. “When I took over in 2008, Gabeng was turning over between $120,000 and $300,000 a year. Six years later, my group of four companies is turning over between $700,000 and $2 million annually.” Flora’s early success further triggered his entrepreneurial creativity. “In 2006, I founded LF Construction.” After roughly four months, Flora closed a contract of $900,000 to do major excavation works in Viana and Barro do Dande, for the construction of two municipal hospitals.
<div id="attachment_157" style="width: 484px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-157" class="size-large wp-image-157" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/RTR2EG45-1024x595.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="275" />ANGOLA-CENBANK</div>
That same year Flora set up a topographic engineering company, TopoEng. In 2008, LF Construction closed a partnership with Chinese company AC-YAUNG Group. Angola receives huge, oil-backed loans from China to help finance postwar reconstruction projects, carried out mostly by the Chinese. Flora “decided to catch the wave rather than swim against the tide”, which paid off. They built a large logistical base for TeleService in Soyo province for 300 “low-income, decent-sized” houses for Angola’s war veterans. Flora is confident about the potential of his company: “I believe LF Construction is our future.”
Flora’s fourth company, ITO, is not yet officially registered. “With big construction projects, I often ended up managing small construction works such as kitchens, done by others. So I decided to do that myself.” ITO comes with important side benefits, he explains. “In Angola, people don’t know who to call, who to trust. That’s where ITO comes in. You never know whose door you might walk into. It might be a successful businessman who offers you a big contract, which has already happened.” Condominium management, an upcoming market in Angola, will become one of ITO’s focus areas.
Being an entrepreneur in Angola is not a picnic. In the World Bank’s Doing Business in 2011 report, Angola ranks 163 out of 183 economies for Ease of Doing Business. “We have great problems in terms of electricity and water supply. So first buy a generator and a water reservoir,” says Flora. “Then there is a lot of bureaucracy involved in importing goods via the harbor. Road access and traffic jams are problematic, the latter mainly in Luanda… I believe in time management. One of my most innovative ideas was to have a fully-equipped mobile office in my car.” Finding skilled Angolan labor is also extremely difficult, according to Flora.
“If you want properly trained people, you’re often forced to employ expats, and they’ll cost you three or four times more. Our solution is to outsource work to other foreign companies in Angola.” At the same time, Flora uses 70% Angolan labor. On Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index, Angola ranks among the world’s 10 most corrupt countries—168 out of 178. “Corruption is still a big issue in developing countries,” Flora says, “Competition here is tough and often unfair. But at least it’s transparent. People tell you: ‘Listen, if you don’t have good connections here, forget it.’entities.
“Everything we’ve done is thanks to sweat and hard work. If I had strong ties with the truly influential people here, then maybe we would be having this conversation in my private jet.” According to him, Angola is entering a new era. “The government is tackling corruption,” he says. “And I do not foresee any new civil war or political instability.” With Flora’s positive outlook, the sky is the limit. “Within LF Construction I’m opening a food division. We want to buy big quantities of fish and transport those to the most remote rural areas of Angola, where fish prices are extremely high.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-large wp-image-158" src="/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AM3A64-680x1024.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="714" />
“The fishing industry is one of Angola’s monopolies,” he explains. “Foreign ships come in, suck up huge quantities of fish and transport them back to their own countries. But the fish you find in Angolan supermarkets has all been imported.” Flora encourages all entrepreneurs to take a close look at Angola. “Angola is a rich country, and there are dividends to be made. Anywhere you go you can either plant, build, or mine something.”

Tag: Construction

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Damming Investment

From A Truck Driver To A King Of Kigali

Building A Fortune By Rebuilding Angola