The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was ad mitted to the East African Community (EAC) earlier this week in an event that probably did not garner as much attention as it should.
In 1997 after Laurent Kabila backed by Uganda and Rwanda
overthrew Mobutu Seseseko word was that some investment bankers had come
together to mobilise resources for the infrastructural development of our
western neighbour.
The plan easily was going to cost billions of dollars and
was intended to not only join every corner of the country to the Atlantic coast
but to its neighbours as well, it was believed to be what the giant African
nation to unlock its full potential.
Believe it or not the Congo’s road network for instance so
bad that a trip that would ordinarily take a day on all-weather roads can take
up to a week when the rain pours and turns it into a muddy morass. Rail
transport is non-existent, water transport on the River Congo is dominated by
rudimentary vessels and telecommunication services are not universal.
The aforementioned plan however, came apart when the Uganda
and Rwanda fell out with Kabila and civil war resumed. To my knowledge the plan
has not been resuscitated in the form I heard about then.
Interestingly they were not the first to habour such dreams. In the 1960s and American financier Edward Detwiler drew up a 50-year development plan that would involve the development of infrastructure and exploitation of the country’s mineral wealth. He had got audience with the then Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba who was looking favourably on the plan, before he was overthrown and murdered. The bill for the project at the time was $1.9b...
The attraction is clear. It has been estimated that the
DRC’s mineral wealth is valued at $12trillion, at the time I heard this the US
economy was $11trillion. To get an indication of the untapped potential of the
DRC the current GDP of the country is $46b. What a scandal.
We have heard the numbers. With the entrance of the DRC the
region’s GDP rise almost 20 percent to $267b and an additional 90 million
people will join the market bringing it to about 300 million people. While most
of DRC’s population is poor, it has huge urban populations that can be serviced
by the region. Kinshasa alone has a population of 15 million more than thrice
the population of Nairobi, which is the next largest city in the EAC.
Ever since the resuscitation of the EAC in 2000 trade
between member states has grown to about 20 percent compared to six percent two
decades ago. This freer movement of goods in the region has cushioned us from
the global financial crisis of 2008 and even more so during the Covid pandemic.
That it is still very low compared to South Africa
Development Community (SADC) where half of their trade is done within the
community or Asia where the number is 70 percent or the EU which is even
higher.
Intra-EAC trade is hampered by poor infrastructure and
non-tariff barriers.
With the DRC the poor transport networks are a major hindrance.
Uganda in collaboration with DRC is in the process of
developing 223km of road in eastern Congo, which it is estimated will more than
double trade flows between the two countries.
Since people have forgotten the Ugandan experience, laying
down roads in DRC – initially all weather and then tarmac, will have a
transformative effect on the population of the country and the region.
Congolese will have access to markets, raising their incomes and becoming a
more formidable market for the region.
If you think about it the inadequacy of the transport
infrastructure through the DRC is hampering communication between north Africa
and South Africa, East and West Africa. A road and rail network will therefore
be a game changer for the continent as a whole...
It would make more sense now for those investment bankers to
dust off their business plans and raise money for the DRC’s infrastructure.
And by the way we have not even begun talking about
exploiting that the country’s vast mineral potential yet.
