The Democratic Republic of the Congo has begun the construction of an industrial water treatment complex in Kinshasa, the Central African country capital city.
Speaking during the launch of the project, President Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi revealed that the contract has been awarded to Weihai International Economic & Technical Cooperative (WIETC), a company based in Weihai, north-eastern China.
Terms of the contract
As per the contract, WIETC is supposed to construct a drinking water plant with a capacity of 110,000 cubic meters a day plus an intake in the Congo River that flows through the capital of the DRC.
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The raw water will be delivered to the plant through an 805mm diameter pipe and over a distance of 3km, via Colonel Tshatshi camp, a military camp located in Ngaliema, west of Kinshasa City. WIETC will also construct a building that will serve as a storage facility for water treatment chemicals.
The entire project is financed by the government through a loan worth US $59.4m from the World Bank, and it is planned to be completed within 23 months.
The Urban Drinking Water Supply Project
The industrial water treatment complex project is part of the Urban Drinking Water Supply Project (Pemu) which aims to increase sustainable access to water in the cities of Kinshasa, Lubumbashi and Matadi while improving the efficiency of Regideso, DRCs’ public water distribution company.
In Kinshasa, Pemu will see the rehabilitation of the existing pumping stations in the city and reinforcement of the water transfer pipe from the N’djili plant over a distance of 18km. Furthermore, the project advocates for the rehabilitation of 120km of secondary and tertiary pipelines, an operation that will enable new connections to be made. The above-mentioned work plus that in Lubumbashi and Matadi cities will require an overall investment of US $360m.
