Ms N P Khunou (African National Congress) to ask the President of the Republic:

What (a) has been the progress with the infrastructure programme of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) since South Africa's appointment as the coordinator and (b) challenges have been encountered thus far? [No 1322E]

Reply:

Honourable Member,

The Presidential Infrastructure Championing Initiative, falling within the ambit of the African Union's New Partnership for Africa's Development, is aimed at achieving regional integration and to improve trade amongst African states.

Trade in the continent is constrained by a number of factors. These include the inadequacy of infrastructure such as road, rail and communication networks, differences in trade regimes, restrictive customs procedures, as well as inadequate skills and finance.

The Presidential Infrastructure Championing Initiative committee comprises eight Heads of State and Government under South Africa's leadership. It cuts across various industry sectors such as Transport, Energy, Technology, Water and Sanitation as well as Agriculture. South Africa champions the North South Corridor road and rail projects.

This Corridor stretches from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, across the Republic of Congo, Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to South Africa. We have conducted an assessment of the roads and the railways to get a sense of what needs to be fixed in order to allow the free flow of goods, people and services. We are making progress.

For example, we have freed the movement of trucks in Kazangula in Zambia. The border post was redesigned which improved among others the processing of documents and other administrative bottlenecks.We have also identified Beit Bridge as another area that has huge constraints.

The traffic jam slows down the movement of people and trucks between Zimbabwe and South Africa, which increases the costs of moving goods.The three Regional Economic Communities - Southern African Development Community (SADC), East African Community and Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), are key partners in improving road and rail infrastructure, as well as issues pertaining to border posts and ports in their respective regions and countries.

We have identified them as key partners in this programme.Amongst the challenges is to further improve and strengthen coordination amongst the member states. Other issues we are looking at include funding methods for the projects and to get more private sector investments into the projects.

We are committed to make this succeed given the importance of infrastructure for Africa's growth and development.

I thank you.

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