Developing Infrastructure in East Africa

Damas Kanyabwoya (The Citizen) - The East African Community (EAC) should concentrate on developing its infrastructure to facilitate trade among the member states.

Doing so will improve the living standards of East Africans.

A trade expert says better infrastructure will ease movements of resources and greatly reduce transaction costs.

"To achieve this trade facilitation in EAC it is imperative to ensure that considerable amounts of technical and financial resources are made specifically in infrastructural development to smoothen the flow of goods, people and services," said Mr Shadrack Nkelebe, the interim chairperson of Tanzania’s Trade Experts Association (Tradexa).

According to him, the construction and maintenance of regional railways, roads, ports and power systems will ease cross_border trade, specifically the landlocked countries.

He bemoans high transport costs as one of the biggest hurdles of the regional trade. He wants the integration process to put forward mechanisms on cooperation to end infrastructural problems in the region.

Professor Francis Matambalya of the University of Dar es Salaam says development funds should be established to assist economically undeveloped areas of countries to catch up with the rest of the region.

Prof Matambalya, who is also a member of Tradexa, says alongside development funds, development programmes should also be designed to develop physical and soft infrastructures where there are infrastructural bottlenecks.

Mr Nkelebe urges EAC partner states to emulate the infrastructure development corridor concept of Tanzania for a much more coordinated approach to infrastructure development.

He speaks of the existence of the third EAC development strategy (2006_2010) with its major focus in infrastructure development.

He says the strategy which is under preparation should ensure various regional developmental projects such as the EA power master plan, EAC road networks, EA railways master plan and the Lake Victoria development programme.

Others are EA telecommunications project, EA civil aviation and EA postal automation project.

"The EAC itself identified infrastructure as one of the first activities for regional cooperation as early as 1996 upon the resumption of the East African Cooperation. It is accepted that accelerated development of regional infrastructure is an important pre_requisite for regional integration and development. This should be made a reality," he notes.

According to him, one of the main challenges facing the infrastructure development in the region is to recognise the need for joint development of facilities.

Other challenges are the capacity to guarantee efficient infrastructure project delivery, utilisation and maintenance, factors that have impacted heavily on the mobilization of funds for infrastructure development.

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