More than 800 infrastructure projects are currently under way in Africa – but project specialists have yet to see the impact of these investments. Transportation costs in Africa are four times higher than anywhere else in the world, and delays and inefficiency are preventing the continent from realising the true potential of projects, said Pramod Bagalwadi, DHL Global Forwarding’s country manager in Ghana, at last week’s Breakbulk Africa conference in Cape Town. “It is only 400km from Ghana to Nigeria but that journey will mean crossing some 20 checkpoints and six borders with delays at each and every one. Along with that there is no consistency and what is deemed the correct weight and axle loading in one country is totally unacceptable in the next,” he said. According to Mark Pearson, programme director for Trademark Southern Africa, for Africa to meet its economic growth targets it needs some $90 billion invested in infrastructure. “This is just far too high an amount for governments to fund on their own and they are faced with having to raise the funds elsewhere – be it through bonds or foreign aid. But it is becoming an increasingly difficult task as private companies want to see returns on their investments.” CAPTION Mark Pearson ... ‘Africa needs $90bn investment in infrastructure.’
800 infrastructure projects under way in Africa
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