Deputy President William Ruto boards a Kenya Airways flight in DRC after attending the Comesa Summit of Heads of State and Governments in Kinshasa. [PHOTO: DPPS]

By JOHN OYUKE

Lack of adequate infrastructure in transport, energy and communication and information technology (ICT) remains one of the most significant limitations to economic growth and development in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

In the energy sector, the total installed capacity for electric power in the 19 member countries is about 55,800 Megawatts.

This contrasts with to a total of 124,000 in France and over 1,000,000 megawatts in the US, according to the outgoing Chairperson of the Comesa Bureau of the Council of Ministers Amelia Kyambadde.

“This translates to high-energy costs, which are a major impediment to the expansion of the manufacturing sector in the region,” she says.

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On the transport sector, Ms Kyambadde who is the Minister of Trade, Industry and Co-operatives of Uganda, observed that for every three rural Africans, only one of them dwells within two kilometers 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,” said the Minister when she addressed the Council of Ministers meeting in Kinshasa, last week.

Deputy President William Ruto represented President Uhuru Kenyatta at the 17th Summit of Comesa Heads of State and Government in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

President Joseph Kabila Kabange took over the leadership of Comesa from President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda during the Summit.

Kyambadde described  the railway network as another sad story, pointing out that with an area of approximately 12 million square kilometres, the Comesa region has a network of 28,000 kilometres of old colonial linkage .

“India with an area of about three million square kilometres has 63,000 kilometres of rail,” Kyambadde disclosed in a statement released by the Comesa Secretariat.

Port of singapore

In 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 sub-Saharan Africa ports.

On Information Communication Technology, about 15.4 per cent are estimated to be Internet users in the sub-Saharan Africa which is way below the world average of 35.6 per 100 people.

The minister described these statistics as depressing and the solution is the mobilisation of resources to close the infrastructure deficit in the region. She however, observed that key initiatives have been taken such as the establishment of the Comesa Infrastructure Fund.

The Council of Ministers approved the takeover of management of the Fund by the PTA Bank in order to benefit from its expertise in resource mobilisation and management. The Bank has already commenced on the mobilisation of funding for projects valued at $ 6.6 billion.

Studies have also been conducted to inform the operational modalities to establish a regional infrastructure bond for Member States. According to Kyambadde, this will be one of the Special Purpose Vehicles to mobilise resources for the development of infrastructure in the region.

In his speech after taking over from President Museveni, President Kabila said that during his tenure, Comesa programmes would be accorded full support in order to speedily move towards achieving full integration. “As a regional bloc, we are a united group in our external trade relations, speaking with one strong voice, a voice much stronger than the voice of any one single Member State dealing with the giants out there,”  he said. President Kabila appealed to his counterparts to agree on a sustainable mechanism for funding Comesa regional integration programmes.

Community levy

“Our colleagues, the Heads of State of Ecowas (Economic Community of West African States), have agreed on a community levy of 1.5 per cent of the customs duty, and this raises over $630 million per year for financing the Ecowas integration programmes.” He said that most Comesa funds came from donors, a situation that was not sustainable.