China offers $200 million USD concessional loan to Tanzania for the Kidunda dam

On June 30, 2014, China Aero Technology International Corporation (CATC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) pledged to offer a $200 million USD (320 billion TZS) concessional loan to the Dar es Salaam Water and Sewerage Authority (DAWASA) for construction of the Kidunda multipurpose dam (or Kidunda hydropower station project or Kidunda Dam water project). It is unclear whether subsequent negotiations ever produced a final financial agreement. The purpose of this project was to improve the water supply in Dar es Salaam. This will be achieved by construction of the dam and a 20 MW hydropower plant at Stiegler's Gorge, located on the Rufiji River within the Selous Game Reserve World Heritage property in the Morogoro region. At the time of the MOU signing, works were expected to last two years. On December 12, 2014, AVIC International Engineering signed the implementation contract for the Kidunda hydropower station project at a cost of $215 million USD. According to Construction Review Online, as of January 2018, works were scheduled to begin in July 2018. However, it said that this was dependent on on-going financial negotiations with National Social Security Fund (NSSF). Based on the combination of (1) a lack of evidence of Chinese financing after 2014 and (2) DAWASA's active search for non-Chinese financing in 2018 suggests that the original MOU with CATC never came to fruition. Moreover, according to a UNESCO article, AVIC International was replaced with two Egyptian contractors.

Number of official sources

5

Number of total sources

10