Transport: focus on roads

Transport plays an inevitable and crucial complementary role in reducing poverty and en-hancing human development (Gannon and Liu, 1997). Transport facilitates movement of people and resources and exchange of commodities. An effective transport system is criti-cal for enhancing development opportunities and lowering the cost of doing business, and therefore transport can contribute to poverty reduction. Arguably, in an open economy, policies that aim at improving transport systems are more effective for the redistribution of wealth and enhancement of human development.

There are broadly four types of transport (namely air, road, railway, and maritime) but this report focuses mainly on road transport. This is purely for illustrative and expository purposes and does not mean to suggest that road transport is necessarily superior to the other forms of transport. In addition, the full discussion is not restricted only to roads and other forms of transport are also commented on, as appropriate.

In comparison with the rest of Africa, the infrastructure indicators for the SADC sub-region are relatively high. The subsub-regional road network is broadly perceived to be well-developed with surface transport being affordable, but subject to delays and long-haul fees (Ranganathan and Foster, 2011).

Surface transport of goods in Africa is more costly and slower than elsewhere in the devel-oping world. Recent studies show that, freight movements were very low, even after delays were taken into account and despite the relatively good condition of the road network.

The volumes of goods moved on the Southern African corridors (per kilometre of road) are notably higher than all other parts of the continent. Selected corridors, such as Durban to Lusaka, can compete with the volume of goods moved on many key global corridors.

More generally, comparing road network densities in countries with large areas with densi-ties in countries with small areas shows that perhaps it is easier to build roads in countries with smaller land areas. The small Island States (Mauritius and Seychelles) have the highest road densities in SADC. On the other hand, countries with large land areas (such as An-gola and DRC) have relatively low road densities. There is one exception, however, in that South Africa, the country with the third largest land mass in SADC, has the third highest road density in the subregion. This historical condition gives South Africa subregional dominance as an economic and commercial hub for the subregion.

The limited road networks throughout most of SADC mean lower trade and commerce facilitation, possibly higher transactions costs in all forms of economic activity, lesser ac-cess to factor and output markets, and lower mobility for factors including labour. All these aspects can be expected to have constraining effects of economic development and human progress.

Figure 5.1: Road network density (road-kilometres per 100 km sq. of land area)³¹

Source: constructed from Country Data Tables (Annex 1)

A subregional study done for the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) (SOFRECO, 2010a) summarises the key challenges related to transport (gener-ally) as follows:

• Transport services on the African continent cost more than twice those in other developing regions. This is primarily due to inefficient operating practices related to internal transport policies, lack of subregional transport policy harmonisation and deferred maintenance of transport infrastructure.

• Most transport fleets are old and inefficient and long waiting times reduce profitability and result in high transport costs. Trucks only cover about 30,000 to 50,000 kilometres per year, compared to 300,000 km in Europe (availability of rolling stock ranges from 35 to 60 per cent, compared to 90 per cent in Europe).

• Railways are suffering from years of neglect and poor maintenance.

31 Comparable data from the WDI are only available up to 2008

• The transport network exhibits poor connectivity (e.g. internal air connectivity and port connectivity) that contributes to high costs, long transit times and unreliable services.

• Intermodal transport services are very limited, compared to other regions.

This can be due to local and subregional transport policies that restrict the use of containers and major operational problems for railways, which affect both freight and passenger intermodal transfers.

• Trade flows for Africa’s 15 [and SADC’s 9] landlocked countries are severely restricted by formal and informal barriers at border posts, lengthy and high-cost transit through neighbouring countries, and constraints caused by port capacity, cargo handling and/or customs.

• An effective strategic framework is lacking for improving the subregional and continental transport systems. This would include harmonisation of procedures and regulations, and long-term dedicated monitoring and assessment.

According to SOFRECO (2010a), typical improvements expected from the transport sec-tor analysis are:

• Critical links created in selected corridors, which will have strong integrating effects on trade and passenger travel; especially considering the importance of the sub-sector and its role in future modal transport mix under PIDA up to the year 2040

• Policies and programmes which will provide incentives for restructuring of air and maritime transport services in line with international best practices

• Policies and programmes to encourage freight inter-modality with inland container depots and dry ports;

• Policies and programmes to support the implementation of “open skies” (the Yamoussoukro Decision on the liberalization of African air transport)

• Policies and programmes to encourage the implementation of “Single African Sky” (the integration of air-traffic control)

• Policies and programmes to implement harmonisation of road-axle loads and truck-size limitations

• Projects aimed at reducing time for transit trade flows through roads rehabilitation and maintenance programmes corridors and port-clearing regulations (customs)

• Projects implementing transport and trade facilitation policies, including one-stop border posts.

In order to maximise the benefits of transport linkages in the SADC subregion, emphasis has been placed the development of major transport corridors. Development of the major corridors is critical to the achievement of the SADC subregion’s economic and political objectives. This is particularly so given that almost half of the SADC member States are landlocked and require efficient subregional transport links for access to the outside world (SADC, 2006).

Furthermore, in recent years intra-SADC trade has increased, requiring transport infra-structure with sufficient networks to interconnect landlocked countries as well as link them to the major ports. The SADC subregion has a number of traditional surface trans-port corridors operating as natural routes to and from the sea. These have been used primarily for the export of raw materials from the subregion to the rest of the world as well as import of finished products from the rest of the world into the subregion (CSIR Transportek, 2001).

Road and rail transport are the dominant modes of transporting goods and people within SADC. They handle the bulk of imports and exports in the respective countries, thus providing a vital transport link for the countries’ diverse import and export commodi-ties Mutambara, 2008). In 2000, the Durban corridor (which has several variations and includes road and rail options) reported an estimated tonnage of 4,071,954³² tonnes and 3,992,755 tonnes via rail and road respectively. The Trans-Kalahari corridor, which routes from Walvis Bay via Lobatse in Botswana, and the Upington/Trans-Oranje corridor both provide direct road links to the Gauteng area of South Africa and reported an approximate tonnage of 1,701,948 tonnes transported via both road and rail in 2000. On the other hand, the Trans-Caprivi road corridor between Namibia and Kasane in Botswana is esti-mated to have carried approximately 88,000 tonnes of cargo in the year 2000 (Sowman, 2001).

However, the Dar es Salaam (also known as the TAZARA) corridor, which mainly runs from Dar es Salaam to Lusaka, showed a downturn in 2000 with only 436,715 tonnes being transported on the route via rail while 78,000 tonnes of transit traffic was via road.

The Beira corridor carried an approximate tonnage of 2,159,000 tonnes and the Maputo corridor carrying a slightly higher volume of 2,412,000 tonnes. Lastly but not the least, the Nacala and Swaziland/South Africa Tourism and Biodiversity corridors carried ap-proximate tonnages of 611,000 and 7,551,000 tonnes respectively (ibid).

However, the performance of these corridors, when compared to transport corridors around the world, is far from satisfactory. Commentators often point to poor levels of efficiency, poor “turnaround” times and hence high costs of transportation. This has re-sulted in poor competitiveness for a significant portion of exports from the subregion in global markets, as well as high landing costs of imported products coming into the subregion. The operations of some of these corridors have reportedly been hampered in 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” (SADC, 2008b). Certainly, these high costs have been passed on to the final consumer by the various service providers.

This situation continues to constrain human development in the subregion.

SADC has generally less developed maritime and inland waterways despite the majority of its member States having access to the sea and enjoying proximity to river basins with great potential. In the subregion, South Africa has the most developed maritime transport, particularly through the Durban port. The Durban, Dar es Salaam and Walvis Bay ports 32 All computations based on reported freight movements by main corridor in Sowman (2001).

account for most of the waterways freight of the SADC subregion. With improvements in integration, SADC’s ports could form a transhipment network. This network could drasti-cally add to the enhancement of off-land time efficiency and reduced cost of transporta-tion, which could have a positive impact on human development

Improvement of corridor efficiency calls for measures aimed at putting together the best corridor practices of the subregion as well as those from elsewhere around the world as an integral part of the wider corridor strategies to develop and modernise all the SADC corridors. SADC corridors development is thus a matter requiring collaborative efforts of all member States. The corridors to benefit from collaborative development efforts include Dar es Salaam, Mtwara Development Corridor, Nacala Development Corridor, Shire-Zambezi Waterway, Beira, Limpopo, Maputo, Libombo Development Corridor, Lesotho Railway, Trans-Kalahari/Walvis Bay, Trans-Caprivi, North-South, Trans-Kunene, Lobito and Malanje (SADC, 2008b).