Work on the Brazzaville-Kinshasa rail-road bridge will be launched in 2020 - RFI

20 mai 2019

Source: RFI.

At the end of his first visit to the Congo, the president of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, announced on Sunday.

At the end of his first visit to the Congo, the president of the African Development Bank (ADB), Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, announced Sunday to President Denis Sassou Nguesso in his stronghold of Oyo (north), that the construction works The road-rail bridge between Brazzaville and Kinshasa, the two capitals closest to the world, will begin in August 2020.

The feasibility studies for this old integration project have already been completed. Funding will be available at the end of this year, according to AfDB President Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, who announced a specific schedule for starting construction.

" The work will start in August of next year. Here we are very precise. It is something very important. I salute the efforts and leadership of Presidents Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo-Brazzaville) and Felix Tshisekedi (DR Congo). We concluded to make the financing with a total amount of 660 million dollars with Africa50 [platform of investment in the infrastructures which contributes to the growth of Africa, Ed]. And the ADB will contribute $ 210 million for the construction of this bridge-road-rail, "said Adesina during a press conference.

The Brazzaville-Kinshasa bridge-road-rail project, two capitals separated by the four-kilometer-wide Congo River, incorporates the vision of the New Partnership for Africa's Economic Development (NEPAD) as the first component; the second being the extension of the 800 to 1000 kilometer long railway between Kinshasa-Ilebo in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Subject to its board of directors, the ADB will make available to the Congo the sum of US $ 2 billion to support its National Development Program 2018-2022, announced its president.