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CONSTRUCTION | REPORT RN1 road completed, Republic of Congo.
Image Credit: Egis / XU Hui – CSCEC
Transport boom fuels West African construction industry According to Deloitte’s latest Africa construction trends report, the transport sector in West Africa led the way in the number of construction projects in 2018.
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f you want to prosper, first build roads, says a Chinese proverb. A quick glance across West Africa and there is still plenty of truth in the old adage. In Deloitte’s Africa Construction Trends report, the transport sector continued to lead the way with almost 40 per cent of the 482 projects being tracked. But it seems that in 2019 ambitions are even higher than ever. Projects on the drawing board include some flagship international connections. One envisages a 1,000 km highway linking Côte d’Ivoire’s commercial capital Abidjan, to Lagos in Nigeria, providing a massive boost for regional integration and trade. The African Development Bank and the Economic Community Of West African States Commission (Ecowas) are financing a study into the project, with further grant support from the European Union. The proposed Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Highway would comprise a six-lane motorway and connect the two countries via Ghana (Accra), Togo (Lomé) and Benin (Cotonou). The project highlights not only ambition, but the level of interest among financiers in West Africa’s roads sector – and not just within the region’s larger economies either.
the RN1 connecting Pointe-Noire to Brazzaville (540 km), the RN1 bis connecting Brazzaville to Mindouli (50 km), the old bypass infrastructure of the Congolese capital, and the RN2 connecting Brazzaville to Ouesso (800 km). The first sections of the new network were inaugurated by the nation’s president Denis Sassou Nguesso at the start of March. Egis teams will also manage the 11 toll plazas of the RN1, updating equipment and assuming responsibility for weighing operations and traffic management, under a 30-year concession company, La Congolaise des Routes, agreed with the government. The company is already a prime mover in the country through the engineering and operation of Brazzaville, Pointe-Noire and Ollombo airports. It played a role in Africa’s first high-speed train line in Morocco, which runs 200 km from Tangier to Kenitra, and was opened last year. It is the first stage in the deployment of a high-speed line masterplan to run a network stretching approximately 1,500 km, comprising both an Atlantic corridor (the Tangier-Casablanca-Agadir route) and a Maghreb corridor (CasablancaRabat-Fez-Oujda).
Congolese highways In the Republic of Congo, French contractor Egis Group is leading three major national road projects:
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Making connections It’s not hard to find more examples of West Africa’s transport
AFRICAN REVIEW OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY | APRIL 2019
renaissance. This year started with the opening of the 942-metre-long bridge linking the Gambia and Senegal, together with border posts at either end. The bridge is a safer, quicker, and alternative route to the risky ferry crossing or the long detour between the northern and southern parts of both nations. Before, travellers had to wait hours or even days for a ferry, leading to huge losses of perishable goods and market produce. Senegal is also anticipating the start-up of its new Regional Express Train (TER) service imminently, the first railway to be built in the country for more than a century. The US$1bn project links Dakar with Blaise Diagne International Airport. Work on a second phase, linking the new rapidly developing business centre of Diamniadio with the airport, will start immediately after completion of the first section in June this year. Financed by a collective of donors, it marks the largest ever investment by the Islamic Development Bank in a sub-Saharan Africa project. And more funds are finding their way to projects throughout the region. In nearby Liberia, Ecowas has signed off a further US$50mn for the Sasstown-Klowein road construction project, in the southeastern part of the country.
Construction boost According to Deloitte, the number of active construction projects in West Africa worth US$50mn or more increased from 66 in 2014 to 105 by 2018, rising steadily through the years and inflating in value at the same time. While the largest projects tend to be focused on the energy sector or in utilities, there are also some standout transport developments as well, such as Nigeria’s US$8bn Lagos-Kano rail project. Overall, the transport sector accounts for about half of all projects tracked within West Africa. It is good news for the region’s construction firms, though many projects still end up in the hands of larger international players. While the region’s governments are the main driving force behind most road and rail projects, the financing comes from a much broader split, from multilateral institutions to bilateral support. China has emerged as the biggest national financier of transport projects across West Africa, a fact that explains the increasing profile of its contractors rolling out high profile schemes on the ground. Nigeria’s Lagos-Badagry expressway expansion project is one such Chinese-built transport project, valued at US$1.9bn. In such an active and dynamic market, however, it still leaves plenty of room for all. ■
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