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Africa: Continent Grapples With Infrastructure
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The Monitor (Kampala)
INTERVIEW
15 April 2008
Posted to the web 14 April 2008
During the maiden African Water week conference in Tunis, Tunisia recently, African Development Bank President Dr Donald Kaberuka talked to Simon Kasyate on various economic and development issues. Excepts:
The lack of proper infrastructure is a major bottleneck for development in Africa. Is the bank funding any inter state road and rail networks in East Africa?
Infrastructure is a core priority for the Bank.
But even when you generalise; across Africa the issue of logistics, the mass transit systems are increasingly becoming a bottleneck and so is energy.
And therefore we are, in accordance with priorities expressed by countries, doing our best in the domain. Are we doing enough?
May be not.
But in the case of East Africa we are working with the East African Community. There is a master plan, which they have submitted to us, we are looking into it with other donors, and [we] hope we can support the countries of East Africa improve their transit systems. I do agree that both the northern corridor and the central corridor require significant upgrading.
We are also making a feasibility study for an extension of the railway from Tanzania to Burundi and Rwanda. We are also working with Kenya and Tanzania to upgrade significantly the road from Arusha to Nairobi and also from Nairobi upwards towards Ethiopia.
What major infrastructural developments in Uganda in terms of roads and railway do you have? Has the government has put such a request through?
We have done quite a lot in Uganda in roads. At this point as we speak we are doing the road from Kabale to Kisoro, we are doing roads in western Uganda, I think two of them; we are quite busy in the road systems in Uganda. We are probably one of the biggest in supporting infrastructure in Uganda; both roads and energy.
Just how much monitoring evaluation does the Bank do to ensure the disbursed funds actually do what they are meant for?
It's an issue not simply for us but even for the people of the African countries themselves.
You know there is this misnomer that somehow sound financial management is an issue for donors or the banks. If you look into the national budgets, the largest contributors are the taxpayers of the countries themselves. Now, is Africa better than it was ten years ago in this domain of governance, including financial governance? I think so. I think accountability has increased, not decreased.
I think financial systems have grown stronger not weaker. And therefore I am persuaded from a fiduciary viewpoint, from an effectiveness viewpoint, we can continue working with our countries as we strengthen financial systems. Now, there are countries where the political will to fight corruption is limited, now that will be a cause for concern if there was no political will to do so.
But what I see more and more is lack of capacity to do so. And here there is political will but the institutions are weak then we shall work with the countries to strengthen the institutions.
With specific reference to Uganda, what is your reading of the situation; lack of political will or its presence but weak institutions?
I am persuaded that Ugandans both in government and outside are making progress in this area.
Now, you must understand that the challenges of governance should be looked at not like you are taking a picture, like you are looking at a film. Is the situation improving year by year? And I think both for Uganda and other countries the answer is yes.
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