Staff Writer
In an era where Africa is striving to fully implement its continental free trade concept to promote trade liberalisation and market-oriented reforms within Africa; boost economic growth; and increase diversity, and integration of African economies and markets, -Sub-Saharan renowned business and infrastructure development expert Dr Tinashe Manzungu has urged African countries to work towards bridging the infrastructural gap in the continent for the restoration of the glory of Africa’s economies.
Speaking at the recently ended 4th edition of the Jamie Pajoel InternationaI (JPI) Annual Leadership Conference in Kigali, Rwanda, Manzungu expressed concern over the infrastructural challenges that are crippling the growth of trade and economic activities within the continent.
“So, the key word is prosperity, it is not about making business for Africans, but we are saying for our continent to be a prosperous continent we have to first address the challenges on the ground that are depriving the growth of the economies or the glory of the economies. We are not supposed to only look for profits when we do our business, but Environmental and Social Governance (ESGs). We are not managing well in this front as Africans and that is what we need to look into and get answers to that.
“You will see that with statistics, one in five people in Africa have electricity meaning to say that there is a shortage of infrastructure in energy you only see that two to 50 % in Africa has access to clean water, we have only 4 % of African farm land being irrigated and the 96 percent does not have irrigation meaning to say we have a gap in terms of provision of infrastructure to provide ourselves with food that we want. More than 60 percent of our population lacks basic sanitation facilities and according to Africa Infrastructure Diagnostics (AID) in Africa its only 25 % that is paved by tarmac and 75 percent is dusty roads,” he noted.
Manzungu also said Africa should be developed mainly by Africa, and with the growing population in the continent, it means that Africa can produce and consume its own products.
He pointed out that African countries are currently having the same infrastructure that was left by their former colonisers, adding that there is a need to make trade more lucrative within Africa as currently trading within the continent are being strained my poor infrastructure.
“So you will see that also the cost of doing business in Africa is plus 30 to 40 % expensive because of the poor rail network and harbour facilities in Africa. It is actually cheap to trade with a country outside of Africa than within Africa when it comes logistics.
“To deal with Zimbabwe from Nigeria for example, how do we get to Zimbabwe, do we have a railway line that is sufficient, meaning to say that whatever we are doing, which means if your cost price was US$10 dollars it will no longer be US$10 dollars but actually US$10 dollars plus 30 or 40%, and what does that mean to our overall prosperity as a continent, is domed, we are going nowhere.” “Therefore, these are the issues now that we have to solve as Africa, we need to close the gaps for this pandemic to end and for us to look into the Africa that we want but this will certainly come with a big cost. According to the UN secretary general report’s estimation- we need 72 billion from now going to 2030, as Africa for the continent to come back to its glory and where will this money come from? That is a big question, it should come from you people! Generated by entrepreneurs! Remember it is not the politicians who build the country, it is the business people.”
