Kenya and Britain's GBM sign deal for 1,000MW dam construction
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Kenya has signed a deal with Britain's GBM Ltd to carry out a feasibility study for the construction of a mega dam with the potential to generate up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity, the National Irrigation Authority said.
The High Grand Falls dam will be one of Africa's biggest when it is completed, the National Irrigation Authority said in a statement seen by Reuters on Friday, and it is part of President William Ruto's drive to boost irrigation farming.
GBM, a firm of consulting engineers, will have six months to map the proposed area for the construction of the reservoir, the irrigation authority said, to inform the final award of a contract through a public-private partnership model.
Under the PPP model, private investors put their money into public infrastructure projects, and then recoup it from charging the users of the service or selling the output.
It allows hard-pressed governments to add infrastructure without contracting additional debt.
GBM is leading a consortium of others, said the irrigation authority, which is the implementing agency for the project, without providing further details.
Officials at the ministry of water and irrigation did not respond immediately when Reuters sought more details.
The dam, when built, is expected to cover an area of more than 165 square kilometres, provide a volume of more than 5.6 billion cubic metres of water to irrigate 400,000 acres of land, the irrigation authority said. (Reporting by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
Reuters