Portugal has agreed to sell Mozambique a controlling stake in the firm which runs the African country’s giant Cahora Bassa dam, Foreign Minister Teresa Gouveia said on Monday.
”An agreement has been reached,” she told a news conference following talks with her visiting Mozambican counterpart Leonardo Simao.
Portugal currently holds an 82% stake in the dam holding company, Hidroelectrica de Cahora Bassa (HCB), while Mozambique holds the remaining 18%.
Gouveia said Portugal and Mozambique still needed to negotiate how large a stake in the company would be sold and at what cost.
Last week Portugal’s chief negotiator in Mozambique, Luis Amaral, said an evaluation of company’s assets would be carried out by Swiss bank UBS.
Lisbon built the hydroelectric dam, located on Mozambique’s Zambezi River, in the 1960s and 70s when the country was still a Portuguese colony.
The dam, one of the largest civil engineering projects ever carried out in Africa, has created a 2 000 square kilometre artifical lake which stretches to the point where the borders of Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge.
It produces 2 000 megawatts of power annually, roughly 60% of it which is sold to neighbouring South Africa.
Lisbon says the dam holding company still owes Portugal some $2,3-billion (1,8-billion euros) related to the construction of the project. – Sapa-AFP