fierce competition

Zambia: China’s Avic battles Casilli consortium for $700m DRC road contract

By Chiwoyu Sinyangwe

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Posted on August 22, 2022 10:40

 © Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in  Washington DC, US on 27 September 2021. Twitter/@HHichilema
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema in Washington DC, US on 27 September 2021. Twitter/@HHichilema

A consortium led by China’s Avic International and another led by Diego Casilli – a Lusaka businessman with strong links to President Hakainde Hichilema – are battling for pole position over the tender to construct Zambia’s busiest road, the Lusaka-Ndola Road. 

The government’s Road Development Agency (RDA) is expected to announce – “before September this year” – a contractor to build the key road linking the capital Lusaka to the copper-rich regions. It is a strategic route: Southern Africa’s sole access corridor to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Last February, the United Party for National Development (UPND) government cancelled the $1.2bn road contract awarded to China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic and Technical Cooperation (CJIC) in 2017 by the regime, citing “overpricing” of the tender.

The dual carriage road is 321 kilometres long, plus a 45-kilometre bypass road.

The initial CJIC contract was originally for engineering, procurement, construction and financing, but now the government plans to award the tender under a public-private partnership model.

Avic vs Casilli

According to sources within the RDA and the

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