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SOUTHERN Africa needs to develop faster and industrialise, hence the stress on industrialisation at next month’s SADC Summit and the preliminary meetings in Harare bringing together public and private sectors to look at practical solutions on this point.
The sub-continent has a vast base of mineral resources, and the countries are all building up their agriculture for the dual purpose of creating the raw materials needed to complement the minerals in new industries, and to convert a lot of poor rural households into a middle-income backbone for the region.
The African Continental Free Trade Area is at the same time becoming established and it is fairly obvious that the most mineralised portion of Africa, SADC, will have the opportunity to become the heavy industry hub of the continent, supplying the processed products that much of the rest of the continent will need for their own industries.
But all this development requires a really first-class transport infrastructure, and although there has been a great deal of work on upgrading the road system, and Zimbabwe is in the midst of this with the work being done now planned for expansion to a network of dual carriageway freeways, the sort of products that heavy industry produces requires a really good railway network, and first class ports that can cope with all sizes of shipping.
Even for intra-African trade there is a need for far better railways and good ports, since exporting copper bars, motors and transformers from say Zambia to West or North Africa will be far cheaper by railway to the nearest port and then by sea to ports in other regions. Zimbabwean steel exports are definitely in this category, even for East African markets.
Once you start to involve an ever-growing share of African processed minerals and industrial products to the rest of the world, then the need for first-class railways and ports that can accommodate the giant container and bulk carriers becomes even more obvious.
Mozambique is very alive to this having been for almost 140 years in the modern economy hosted the main ports for a seriously large swathe of SADC, in fact Maputo and Beira developed for precisely this reason, and knows just where the limits are for existing ports and their potential expansion.
Africa is not blessed with a lot of natural sites for deep water ports, or many ports for that matter, and compromises have had to be made. Beira, for example, was established in the Pungwe estuary simply because there was no other site in the “waist” of Mozambique.
But it requires continual dredging to stay open, and there are serious limits on the size of ship that can use the harbour. It will always be busy, and will grow significantly, but will be of limited use for the most efficient very large ships needed for the most economical longer-distance voyages.
Maputo is more of a natural port, but again has its limits to further expansion. Hence the Mozambican plan for a new port on the southern side of this great system of bays, at Techobanine, at one of those rare African points where it is possible to develop a deep water protected port. This is why President Mnangagwa, President Filipe Nyusi of Mozambique and President Mokgweetsi Masisi of Botswana met last week to agree on the feasibility studies required, starting with this port and then including a major upgrade, and some new lines, on the railway network that will link this port with the interior countries.
There is a basic railway network in parts of Southern Africa, but Botswana in particular is only just connected, with the single line along its eastern border from South Africa to Plumtree.
This is the main reason why that country is perhaps the major railway planner in Southern Africa, looking at the line extension to the north and the major line to the west.
That western line would connect what is probably the largest coalfield in Africa in central Botswana, one that cannot be exploited at the moment, to global trade and the extension would almost certainly require a new east-west link across part of Zimbabwe and significant expansion and upgrade of the capacity of existing lines.
That same line would provide much of the required stretch for the proposed TransKalahari line to Walvis Bay, linking with the central Namibian line.
Mozambique has already shown the best way to upgrade a railway line by the doubling of the track for the railway from Maputo into South Africa.
Doubling track, rather than building a line along a new route, is significantly cheaper since the railway reserve is already in place, so there is no ever more expensive compensation for driving a line through settled areas, plus there is the grading and bridges in place even if these have to be widened.
And doubling a track more than doubles its capacity as trains no longer have to sit in sidings waiting for a train in the opposite direction to pass.
There is already a line from Maputo connecting with the Zimbabwean network near Gweru, although a lot of work would be needed to bring this line into use for very heavy trains and traffic. Extending it south to Techobanine would not be that difficult.
One major contribution by President Mnangagwa at the Mozambican meeting was for the region to look at its own resources, rather than seeking foreign long-term finance and concessions.
This would also allow a lot more flexibility and building up the infrastructure of ports and railways as they were needed for uses that may be different from past plans and even unimaginable today.
For example, global climate agreements are seeing diminished use of coal for power stations, although steelworks will always need coke and coking coal, so potential Botswana global coal exports might be more limited, but there would be need for more traffic for other Botswana products from the northern half of the country as industry takes hold. The railway line and ports would still be needed, but would be differently used.
What we have already seen in our region are the constraints of transport infrastructure, and it is easy to work out that a decent rate of economic development, one that doubles economies every decade, will need huge expansion in this infrastructure.
So the innovative planning in the region is vital, must be taken seriously and must be done properly to meet the needs of today and the growing needs of tomorrow.
Online Reporter