A growing appetite for improved and expanded infrastructure in Africa has raised optimism in the region’s project sector. According to Deanne de Vries, senior vice president for Agility Africa, while oil and gas projects have for a long time been limited to Angola and Nigeria, there are now large-scale developments all over the continent including Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal and Tanzania as well as Ghana, Kenya and Uganda. “You are also seeing new routes to market. For example Uganda and Tanzania recently signed a deal for a heated crude export pipeline. Four West African countries (Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea) are building a cross-border electricity interconnector for energy supply,” she said. All of this means increased project cargo volumes. The sector, however, is not without its share of challenges. “The vital role of education cannot be over-emphasised,” said De Vries. “Project cargo and breakbulk require expertise. One needs people to keep track of spending, transport engineers to correctly
estimate bridge weight restrictions, health, safety and environment (HSE) staff to ensure people are working safely and not harming the environment, and project managers to deliver cargo on time and to the right location.” Also challenging, she said, was port and city congestion – along with bureaucracy. “This adds significantly to shipping costs to Africa,” she told FTW. “The World Bank estimates that the cost of taking a container from China to Tanzania is 60% higher than from China to Brazil, even though Brazil is on the ‘wrong’ side of South America from the point of view of China.” She said while ports were improving and turnaround times of project cargo in particular was speeding up, it was still extremely difficult to accurately predict how long it took for items to clear customs and the port. This uncertainty heavily impacted projects and deadlines. Inefficiencies, bottlenecks and corruption remain at the heart of most of the delays.
But she remains extremely optimistic about the project and breakbulk sector. “Infrastructure is a key enabler to Africa’s growth. And this requires the expertise of companies able to deliver project and breakbulk cargo on time, on budget, to the right location, undamaged. While fixing existing or building new infrastructure is beyond the scope of any one company or even a single government, working together governments, companies, funding institutions and others can develop the necessary infrastructure that will catalyse trade, growth, investment and development of existing and new industries,” she said.
The World Bank estimates that the cost of taking a container from China to Tanzania is 60% higher than from China to Brazil. – Deanne de Vries
