Kinshasa walking a tightrope to rebuild economy

• After signing peace agreements with more than 18 rebel groups since January last year, the country is struggling to invest and foster good neighbourliness.

Inga III will connect to the electrical grids of Angola, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa, some of the world’s major diamond — and oil — producing countries.

It is notable, however, that the budget doesn’t include funds to actually light up the homes of the Congolese. “The project’s backers have completely refused to include African civil society in discussions,” says Terry Hathaway of the non-governmental advocacy group, Rivers International.

“The price covers only the cost of the hydropower plant and long-distance transmission lines to Africa’s mining and industrial heartlands,” he explains. “Meaning the project’s electricity won’t reach even a fraction of the continent’s half billion people not yet connected to the grid.”

In the meantime, the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda problem continues to fester. These rebels have waited 15years, and will happily wait another 15 as they ponder over how to make their way back to Kigali.

In much the same way Rwanda’s current regime was formed in refugee camps in Uganda, so could the Hutu in eastern Congo turn out to be an “inefficient equivalent” notes Gerard Prunier, a researcher on the two countries, who has followed the region’s history for the past 20 years.

“The same will happen with the Hutu,” he says, when the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda musters the courage to test Rwandan security.

And then Congo’s life cycle will begin again.

Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network Project.