The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has appointed a Belgium consortium as transaction advisor (TA) for the Central African Backbone phase 5 (CAB5) project.

The wining consortium is composed by Cadmos, ENS, Jidcom, ProgressusCorporation and MBM Conseil. The teams beat out competition from two other consortia, one from France and one from Germany.

The team, among others, will support DRC to develop and structure the public private partnership (PPP) contract. The TA contract will be for a period of 12 month and has a value of about US$1.5 million.

CAB5 project involves the development of a fiber-optic cable to link DRC to a number of other countries in Central Africa, including Angola, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan and Burundi.

CAB5 is being funded by the World Bank. The multilateral development bank approved a US$92.1 million grant for the project in July 2014.

The CAB5 project will be managed and supervised by DRC telecoms regulator, the "Autorite de Regulation des Postes et Telecom" (ARPTC).

The project is expected to be operational between late 2019 and early 2020.