The most important developments in sub-Saharan Africa. Six days a week.
Uganda broke ground on 22 October on a 400-kilovolt transmission line that will run about 347 kilometres from the Karuma hydropower plant to Tororo in eastern Uganda. The Daily Monitor put the cost at €342.6 million (about $385 million), funded by a Standard Chartered loan backed by Swedish export credit agencies, with Kalpataru Power Transmission Sweden as contractor and a 36-month build. The line will carry power from the 600-megawatt Karuma dam to eastern Uganda and Greater Kampala, where the government wants industry to grow. New generation only helps factories once the grid can deliver it, and officials also tie the line to plans for regional electricity trade.
DR Congo has begun taking back the fuel pipelines, pumping stations and storage depots built under a 1910 colonial concession, after the convention with Petro Congo, now Fina, expired on 31 December 2025. KPMG, hired by the state-enterprise reform committee (Copirep), presented its inventory of the assets to officials and operators in Kinshasa on 21 October. The network runs from Ango Ango to Matadi and on to the Pool Malebo area around Kinshasa. Control of the line would give the state a direct say over how fuel reaches the capital, though operators may contest some assets. A technical audit and a legal commission will decide what returns to the state.
Togo's Council of Ministers on 22 October adopted a bill replacing the free industrial zone regime, created in 1989, with special economic zones that offer time-limited, conditional tax breaks varying by location. The same meeting approved a 2027 budget of 2,684 billion CFA francs (about $4.9 billion), 2.5% smaller than this year's, and revised the 2026 deficit to 3.4% of gross domestic product after fuel prices rose. The government said the old regime had concentrated investment around Lomé and had weak links with the national economy. Investors lose open-ended tax holidays, while Togolese suppliers and regions outside the capital stand to gain from local-content rules and location-based incentives.
Senegal's electricity programme of about $600 million, funded mostly by a US government grant, has reached 99% completion five months before it closes in March 2027, the managing agency, MCA Sénégal, said on 22 October. Upgrades to the transmission network of state utility Senelec should be finished by the end of November, and all villages the programme was due to electrify have been reached. The programme also brought a new Electricity Code and a stronger regulator, but rules for an electricity market and third-party access to the transmission grid are still pending. Those rules will decide whether private producers can use Senelec's grid to sell power directly to large customers, and Senegal must now finish them without US funding.
