Construction World February 2017

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CONSTRUCTION WORLD FEBRUARY 2017 2
COMMENT
EDITOR & DEPUTY PUBLISHER
Wilhelm du Plessis
ADVERTISING MANAGER
Erna Oosthuizen
LAYOUT & DESIGN
Lesley Testa
CIRCULATION
Karen Smith
TOTAL CIRCULATION:
(Third Quarter ’16)
4 824
PUBLISHER
Karen Grant
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Tandym Cape
@ConstWorldSA
Some of the major African
infrastructure projects
• West African rail network to connect Benin, Burkina Faso,
Niger, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Togo
When completed, the rail will be 3 000 km long.
• The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Situated in the Blue Nile, this dam will generate 6 000 MW.
• The Mombasa-Kigali Railway Project
A 3 000 km long railway, connecting
three African states.
• Kenya’s Konza Techno City
Built on 5 000 acres of land and part of the
Kenya Vision 2030.
• The Ethiopia-to-Djibouti Rail Link
A 650 km railway linking Addis Ababa with the Port
of Doraleh in Djibouti
• The Grand Inga Dam in the Democratic Republic of
Congo situated near the Inga Falls – this dam would
have cost USD80-billion when completed.
• SolarReserve’s Jasper Solar Power Project in
South Africa: SolarReserve has 238 MW of
solar projects under construction.
As a continent, Africa is expected to grow
economically by about 6% annually to 2033.
The one factor that can stop Africa from
achieving this is infrastructure – particularly
the dire lack thereof.
Harbour infrastructure upgrades are essential in unlocking Africa’s
growth potential. Durban Port recently upgraded some of its wharfs
to increase capacity.
IDE Consulting Services says that the absence of adequate
infrastructure costs Africa’s GDP up to 2% a year. It goes on to
say that three quarters of Africa’s infrastructure projects do not
get off the ground because of infrastructure inadequacies.
A reason often cited for this is the lack of funding for such
infrastructure development. The World Bank has stated that
Africa has to spend USD93-billion until 2020 to bridge this gap.
Yet, the truth is that African governments, and other multi and
bilateral resources, are already funding about USD4-billion
across Africa annually. This is a clear indication that various
projects, of a relatively sizeable nature, are happening.
There is general consensus that the answer to solve the
infrastructure shortage, is that planned projects actually happen
– not necessarily finding funding for more projects. In a recent
article Ravi Kumar, director of IDE says this will ensure that
projects will start to deliver returns, which will in turn attract
more investors.
There have been enough major projects in Africa to allow
one to identify problem areas in the identification, planning and
execution of projects: lack of policy frameworks, bad financing
frameworks, substandard project and contract management and
insufficient monitoring of projects that are being executed.
Armed with this knowledge, stakeholders will hopefully not
make the same mistakes again.
Who is funding Africa’s projects?
Development finance institutions and export credit agencies
are largely responsible for major infrastructure activity in
Africa (building, upgrading and maintaining). These include
the World Bank, Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA),
African Development Bank (ADB) and the Agence Française De
Développement (AFD).
Wilhelm du Plessis
Editor