Commodities boom must kick-start regional infrastructure development

Africa needs to find ways of leveraging the commodities boom on the continent to see more infrastructure development than just that from port to mine, said Deputy Minister of Transport Jeremy Cronin. Cronin said the commodities boom was fuelling African growth but it was important to find ways of leveraging the boom to ensure sustainable infrastructural development across the continent. “There is no point in raising funds to only build infrastructure from a mine to a port. We need to think further afield and explore how we can create links between countries and propel infrastructural changes or face the very real possibility of locking ourselves into yet another century of under-development.” Cronin said the first step was increasing inter-regional trade. “A recent meeting between SADC, Comesa and the East African Community agreed on this very objective – that all the role-players would be working very seriously on a free trade agreement from the Cape to Cairo that will involve vastly intertwined inter-regional trade and product chains. A central pillar to this is a north-south corridor for both rail and road, and then east west corridors as well to connect to the various ports.” He said the biggest challenge in realising this was not tariff barriers as many believed but rather nontariff barriers. “A recent study found that trucks between Malawi and South Africa travelled at an average speed of 50-60km per hour, but once the delays at the border posts were worked in, the average travelling distance was only 12km an hour,” said Cronin. “There is no point in having a great road or railway if the delay at the border post is so significant.” He said southern Africa had no choice but to champion rail as it moved into the future. “Congestion, road fatalities and road maintenance are all taking their toll on the road networks. The only way to address it is to move freight back to rail.” But, said Cronin, one cannot think rail in isolation. “We need a developmental perspective, a regional multi-modal approach. We have to address our poor infrastructure that is disconnected from other networks and also not maintained.”