The construction of the Rusumo hydropower plant, which is expected to benefit over a million people in Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi, is on track, raising public confidence in the countries’ efforts to reduce the cost and shortage of electricity.

The 80MW project is expected to be complete by 2020, according to the council of ministers from the three countries.

Amb. Claver Gatete, Rwanda’s minister for infrastructure, told the media that: "We want to assure the public that the deadline set will be met.”

Once the project is complete, the minister said, it will boost Rwanda’s access to electricity by 4 per cent as 467,000 households will be connected to the national grid.

Electricity access in Rwanda stands at 46 per cent with plans to achieve universal access by 2024.

The project will boost Burundi’s access to electricity by 5 per cent and 0.34 per cent for Tanzania.

It’s jointly funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank to a tune of $468 million.

The project is also being implemented alongside two other small programmes— the local area development and the livelihood restoration programme—which were designed to cater for the resettlement of people who were relocated from their land in order to pave way for the implementation of the energy project.

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