TRANSPORT INFRASTRUCTURE is a transnational affair and it requires some determined intervention by persons and institutions not driven by political expediency to understand the magnitude of what has to be done, set aside the artificial political barriers that sometimes bedevil finding cross-border solutions, and prepare for a bumper future windfall or condemn the region to an economic thump. The transport infrastructure will be a critical component in meeting the objectives of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad). In May this year the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in a report that African countries would need to spend 4% of gross domestic product each year for a decade just on roads. It noted that 15 of Africa’s 54 countries were landlocked – ditto Zambia. Only a few have international grade airports, and infrastructure investment is costly due to low population densities. It noted that paved roads were seriously affected by systematic overloading of trucks and poor drainage. So 10% of world road deaths occur in the region, despite the fact that it has only 4% of the globe’s registered vehicles. It notes also that the region only has 3% of worldwide railroad infrastructure, even though much of its exports (commodities) are best suited to the rail option. Efficient regulation is needed to derive maximum benefit from private sector participation in establishing transport infrastructure. Key factors for success include “strong government commitment to ensure the credibility of the reform process, proper sequencing and the creation of an independent and well-enforced regulatory body.” Unfortunately the much heralded pledge in 2005 by leaders of the world’s richest nations during the 2005 Doha (Qatar) summit to increase unencumbered or soft aid significantly by 2010 to alleviate poverty appears to be limping along as slowly as much of the African transport grids. Oxfam reports that three of the nations, Britain, Germany and France – ironically those with major colonial stakes in Africa and other the parts of the developing world – in fact decreased aid during 2005 compared with 2004 when adjusted for debt relief. A loose interpretation of this appears to be that they have forgiven previous debt without injecting any new immediate aid cash to try to fast track development solutions. This negative state of affairs was dealt with during President Thabo Mbeki’s recent visit to Britain for the UK/SA Bilateral Forum, where Mbeki said there had been some progress on the big Nepad plan announced at the same time as the Doha pledge was made. British prime minister Tony Blair, a prime mover for the Doha pledge, also said that he was disappointed with the progress being made. More positively, the US government hosted the fifth African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) Forum during June this year. The US government is currently in talks with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for permission to extend the preferential trade regime to 2015. US assistant secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazier, called for affected Agoa countries to implement more “smoothly operating business climates” as this was an impediment to growing trade. Bearing this out in Zambia is the chairperson of the Zambia Association of Manufacturers’, Diego Cassilli, who said the high cost of production in the manufacturing sector was the biggest enemy of the economy. “It is just poor direction. The signals coming out of the government are not good enough and business is struggling to understand the signals,” he said. Government should champion the way by reducing the cost of inputs such as energy, labour and taxes. Cassilli said that, with the appreciation of the kwacha, the manufacturing industry would yield poor results if the government failed to control production costs. He also called on the Ministry of Finance to include the private sector in all its budgetary processes. Referring to taxation, the Zambian Association of Chambers and Industry (ZACCI) chief executive, Justine Chisulo, said that the level of tax penalty had put Zambian companies at a disadvantage when trying to establish themselves in new African trade blocs. The two prime blocs were the enlarged and liberalised markets under the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa). He cautioned that some regional economies within these had adjusted taxes for productive sectors as a way to ensure competitiveness in the markets. Specific to transport – it should be noted that the government is proposing hikes in taxes for certain heavy vehicle masses as announced in its 2006 Budget.
