SADC’s legislative barriers slow down progress

Efforts to strengthen regional value chains across southern Africa will depend on improvements in logistics infrastructure, more effective project governance and stronger skills development frameworks, according to industry experts. Speaking on the role of regional integration and value chains at Infrastructure Africa, Hendrik Malan, CEO of Frost & Sullivan Africa, said while regional corridors and integration initiatives had gained momentum, structural barriers continued to limit the development of competitive regional supply chains. According to management consultant Coenraad Bezuidenhout, infrastructure tends to get a lot of attention but that alone will not deliver bankable projects. “We have seen many countries establish a project management office and they all operate in the same manner. What matters is a system that operates with predictable pricing, enforceable rules and clear accountability structures.” Projects also need structured financing models where funding is released in stages as key milestones are achieved. “The golden standard is financing tied to clear stage gates where permits, offtake agreements and operational readiness are verified before funds are released. He added that infrastructure development must also secure public acceptance. Using South Africa’s Gauteng freeway improvement project as an example, Bezuidenhout said the tolling system had demonstrated how infrastructure projects could fail without public buy-in. “You need a licence to operate. Not regulated or legislated, but with public support. Infrastructure demand must exist and projects need to take this into account.” Lufuno Ratsiku, an infrastructure specialist at GenTECH consulting, said policy frameworks and legislative barriers within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) continued to slow the development of regional infrastructure and cross-border economic systems. From a regional integration perspective, he said corridors such as the Maputo Development Corridor created valuable opportunities for skills exchange between neighbouring countries. “When we integrate to build infrastructure across borders, one country can benefit from the skills of the other,” he said, explaining that these projects allowed lessons to be shared simultaneously between participating countries. However, differing policy frameworks and legislative processes often complicate implementation. Where infrastructure projects require enabling legislation, progress can stall if governance processes move at different speeds across borders. “If one side moves faster than the other because of its governance systems, projects become confused,” said Ratsiku, noting that different legislative frameworks and regulatory authorities frequently slowed down implementation. He added that regulatory processes themselves were among the most binding constraints on infrastructure development in southern Africa. Approval processes often involve multiple authorities and layers of bureaucracy, resulting in lengthy timelines. He said that while environmental impact assessments can be completed in as little as eight weeks in some countries, such as Rwanda, similar processes in parts of southern Africa can take years. “We have layers of bureaucracy and too many authorities involved in approval processes. Hierarchy in decision-making is not the problem, but the timelines within those systems are.” LV