Zambia-Zimbabwe dam to start rehabilitation next month

Long-awaited rehabilitation of a dam owned by Zambia and Zimbabwe will start next month, a senior Zambian government official said on Monday.

Zambian Minister of Finance Felix Mutati said rehabilitation work will now commence after the two governments managed to raise 294 million U.S. dollars required.

The two governments will on Tuesday sign a contract for the start of the rehabilitation of the plunge pool, the Zambia minister is quoted as saying by the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation.

Rehabilitation of the spillway gates at the dam is expected to start in 2018, he added.

The Zambian minister went on to state that the rehabilitation of the dam will allow it to operate at full capacity to meet international standards.

The rehabilitation of the dam is being financed by the European Union (EU), the World Bank, the Swedish government and the African Development Bank (AfDB) while the two governments have also contributed counterpart funding.

Plans to rehabilitate the dam started in 2014 after experts advised that it should be repaired after cracks emerged on its walls.

Experts had warned that Africa's largest man-made lake, which measures 226 kilometers long and in some places 40 kilometers wide, would collapse if nothing was done to repair it.

Built between 1956 and 1959, the dam provides more than 50 percent of the two country's electricity. Endit