China Gezhouba Group pledges to build Orugu and Congo dams in Sierra Leone

On June 4, 2019, Sierra Leone's Minister of Water Resources Jonathan Bonopha Tengbethe signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the China Gezhouba Group Company Ltd. (CGGC, 中国葛洲坝集团股份有限公司) during a visit to Beijing. The MOU outlines a Chinese commitment to develop the Orugu and Congo Dams and Water Treatment Plants projects.

As of September 2019, the two projects were undergoing a first assessment by the state-owned Guma Valley Water Company (GVWC) with the support of the Ministry of Water Resources of Ghana.

The evaluation was expected to enable “CGGC and GVWC to begin to assess the technical aspects and environmental impacts of projects in order to develop innovative financing solutions so that projects do not represent a significant burden on the Government of Sierra Leone”. The Orugu dam would store water from the Rokel River at the Mortem village.

It is situated in the Mortem village on the Regent to Grafton highway.

Its corresponding water treatment plant would be able to provide 70,000 m^3 of drinking water per day to over 600,000 people in the Grafton, Jui, Waterloo, Allen Town, Calaba Town, Wellington and Kissy communities.

The Congo River dam would be constructed in the upper reaches of Regents in western Sierra Leone, supplying a treatment plant with a capacity of 30,000 m^3 per day.

The water would be used in Regent, Leicester, Gloucester, Kortright/Fourah Bay College, Charlotte, Bathurst, Imatt and Hill Station.

This project was first proposed in 2009 by the Chinese Government, which offered $28.8 million in loan financing, but the project was later suspended. Financing details and the status of the project are currently unknown. As of 2021, no updates appear to have occurred for the project since its 2019 commitment.