Comesa decries lack of transport infrastructure
Comesa region has a network of 28,000 kilometres of rail network with an area of about 12 million square kilometres and this has been cited as one of the hindrances to the trade area’s development

Comesa region has a network of 28,000 kilometres of rail network with an area of about 12 million square kilometres and this has been cited as one of the hindrances to the trade area’s development

Acting Business Editor
THE Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) has cited the lack of adequate infrastructure in transport, energy and information communication technology as the major limitation to economic growth and development in the region. This was highlighted at the just-ended Comesa Council of Ministers meeting in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The trading bloc revealed on its website that in the energy sector, the total installed capacity for electric power in the 19 Comesa countries including Zimbabwe was about 55,800 megawatts.

It said this contrasts with to a total of 124,000MW for France and more than 1,000,000MW for the United States of America.
The outgoing chairperson of the Comesa Bureau of the Council of Ministers Amelia Kyambadde told the delegates that this translated to high energy costs which were a major impediment to the expansion of the manufacturing sector in the region.

On the transport sector, Kyambadde who is also the Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives in Uganda noted that for every three rural Africans, only one of them dwells within two kilometres of an all-season road.

“This has condemned millions of our brothers and sisters to remain trapped in subsistence agriculture because they are unable to reach urban markets”, she said in her address last week.

Within the Comesa region, the railway network was another area that needed to be looked at.
With an area of about 12 million square kilometres, Comesa region has a network of 28,000 kilometres of an old colonial-era rail network. India with an area of about three million square kilometres has 63,000 kilometres of rail.

With regard to marine transport, Sub-Saharan Africa with about 23 ports has a total capacity of around 350 million tonnes of cargo. In comparison, the Port of Singapore alone handles about 470 million tonnes of cargo more than all the cargo handled by the Sub-Saharan Africa ports.

On Information Communication Technology, about 15,4 percent are estimated to be Internet users in the sub-Saharan Africa which is way below the world average of 35,6 percent per 100 people.

Kyambadde said the above statistics were depressing and the solution was the mobilisation of resources to close the infrastructure deficit in the region.

Key initiatives have been taken such as the establishment of the Comesa Infrastructure Fund.
The Comesa Council of Ministers has approved the takeover of management of the fund by the PTA Bank in order to benefit from the expertise of the financial institution in resource mobilisation and management.

The bank has already commenced on the mobilisation of funding for projects valued at $6,6 billion.

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