Cahora Bassa

Cahora Bassa is Africa's fourth largest artificial lake situated in the province of Tete, Mozambique. We had opportunity to visit this site on a recent administrative trip to Mozambique. More stories will come from that visit. Following is a brief description of the Cahora Bassa dam and lake and its dynamic history (taken from Wikipedia)

"The Cahora Bassa System started in the late 1960s as a project of the Portuguese in the Overseas Province of Mozambique. South African Governments were also involved in an agreement stating that Portugal would build and operate a hydroelectric generating station at Cahora Bassa together with the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission system required to bring electricity to the border of South Africa. South Africa, on the other hand, undertook to build and operate the Apollo converter station and part of the transmission system required to bring the electricity from the South African/Mozambican border to the Apollo converter station near Midrand. South Africa was then obliged to buy electricity that Portugal was obliged to supply.

During its construction, the dam site was repeatedly attacked without success by Frelimo guerrilla insurgents in an attempt to sabotage the project. Portugal increased popular support in Mozambique with this and other development works (see Mozambican War of Independence). The dam began to fill in December 1974.

Until 2007 the dam was operated by Hidroeléctrica de Cahora Bassa and jointly owned by Mozambique, with an 18% equity stake, and Portugal, which held the remaining 82% equity. On November 27, 2007 Mozambique assumed control of the dam from Portugal.^[1] In 2007, Portugal sold to Mozambique most of its 82 percent stake in the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power facility in the Southeast African country. Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said Portugal would collect US$950 million (€750 million) from the sale of its part of southern Africa's largest hydropower project. Portugal keeps a 15 percent stake in Cahora Bassa, though it planned to sell off another 10 percent at a later stage to an investor that would be proposed by the Mozambican government. Portugal's Prime Minister José Sócratessigned the agreement with the Mozambican government, during an official visit to Maputo. The agreement ended decades of dispute between Portugal and its former territory in East Africa over the company, called Hidroelectrica Cahora Bassa. The central disagreement was over the handling of the company's estimated US$2.2 billion (€1.7 billion) debts to Portugal. Mozambican authorities argued they had not guaranteed the debt and therefore should not be liable for the payments."