by Munetsi Madakufamba – SANF 08 No 08
With the impending Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area to be launched in August 2008 and a SADC Customs Union in 2010, the need for efficient, seamless and cost effective corridors has become more urgent than ever before.
This was said by Remmy Makumbe, the Acting Chief Director of SADC Secretariat at the SADC Council of Ministers meeting in Lusaka, Zambia this week.
Makumbe said, “Given the critical importance of the corridors in the implementation of the Free Trade Area and Customs Union, arising from [SADC] Summit’s directive on this matter, the SADC Secretariat formulated and adopted a holistic corridor strategy to facilitate corridor development as well as ensure performance of all corridors within acceptable standards and norms.”
At their Summit last year in Zambia, SADC leaders expressed concern at the slow pace of implementing goals and targets to achieve regional integration and eradicate poverty.
Committing to embark on radical measures to strengthen infrastructure development as a measure to speed up the process of implementing the regional integration programme, the SADC leaders directed the Secretariat to work out details of a regional Master Plan for Infrastructure Development in close cooperation with member states.
Historically, the SADC region has had several traditional surface transport corridors operating as natural routes to and from the sea. These have been used primarily for export of raw materials from the region to the rest of the world as well as import of finished products from the rest of the world into the region.
However, the operations of some of these corridors, said Makumbe, have been hampered to varying degrees by infrastructure bottlenecks such as “poor roads, bridges, curves, border infrastructure layout and logistics, as well as lengthy and unnecessarily complicated and non-harmonised customs border procedures and documents”.
“The performance of these corridors, when benchmarked against transport corridors around the world, has revealed poor levels of efficiency, poor turnaround and hence high costs of transportation, resulting in poor competitiveness of exports from the region in global markets as well as high landing costs of imported products in the region,” said Makumbe who is also the Director of the SADC Infrastructure and Services Directorate.
Inevitably, these high costs have been passed on to the final consumer by the various service providers. This situation has given rise to a relatively lower quality of life for the majority of SADC citizens.
In response to the Summit directive, the Secretariat is developing a SADC Corridor Strategy in consultation with the member states. Makumbe revealed that SADC has launched a study to put together the best corridor practices of the region as well as those from elsewhere around the world as an integral part of the wider corridor strategies to develop and modernize all the SADC Corridors.
SADC is in the process of addressing challenges in the corridors through:
- packaging of corridor infrastructure development projects into bankable projects for implementation by member states; and
- facilitating corridor infrastructure development as well as transport and trade facilitation along the corridor borders, as well as harmonization of customs procedures and standardization of customs, to ensure effective movement of goods
The SADC Corridors that are being developed in conjunction with the member states include: the Dar es Salaam Corridor, Mtwara Development Corridor, Nacala Development Corridor, Shire-Zambezi Waterway, Beira Corridor, Limpopo Corridor, Maputo Corridor, Libombo Development Corridor, Lesotho Railway, Trans-Kalahari Corridor, Walvis Bay Corridor, Trans-Caprivi Corridor, North-South Corridor, Trans-Kunene Corridor, Lobito Corridor, and the Malanje Corridor.
The proposed Kazungula Bridge, which is meant to link Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, is one project that is pivotal in stimulating trade within the context of the SADC Free Trade Area and Customs Union.
“I am convinced that even though the three countries are implementing this project, its impact will be felt in the [SADC] region as a whole,” said Makumbe.
Consultations are underway on the implementation of the Kazungula Bridge Project and a contract is expected to be signed soon once all outstanding issues are agreed upon by the parties involved.
The construction of the Kazungula Bridge is meant to replace the existing ferry, which constitutes a major bottleneck to free movement of persons and goods between the three countries.
The two-day SADC Council of Ministers whose main purpose is to approve the budget and work programme of the Secretariat for the next 12 months was preceded by meetings of senior officials who met from 25-27 February.
