Irrespective of the economic slowdown
in the developed world, Africa has sustained remarkable economic growth over
the past few years. For a mindset which has believed for generations that
Africa is completely dependent to the outside world, this growth in the midst
of staggering world economy, somehow showcases that the continent is able to
manage its own affairs by itself, as it should be, better than ever.
The economic growth achieved so far;
however, is mainly either through aggressive public led infrastructure
development or oil driven expansion which creates less space for private led
long term economic growth. While the exaggerated public led development
squeezes innovation and the private investment on the one hand, the oil driven
expansion creates room for corruption and extravagance on the other hand, as
witnessed across the continent over several years.
Brain drain has been the number one
enemy of Africa’s economy for generations and now is the time to change the
course for the better. Taking in to account the current level of infrastructure
developments taking place throughout the continent, experienced African
professionals all over the world should be made part of the development plan to
maintain the level of quality and fuel the growth even further. ‘Local’ Professionals
in the private sector can also play a big role in addressing the current shortcomings
and taking the opportunities ahead as they do have firsthand experience on the
ground.
When a state enterprise is
established to address some kind of problem for example, there is, most often,
a long tradition of appointing someone who used to be in some other state enterprise
or so without diligent evaluation of the individuals track record. It will also
be worthwhile for the continent if the African governments eye the private sector
players and entitle them to similar establishments based on their industry
experience and leadership capability with better incentives, mainly to avoid
the bottlenecks to the long term private sector led growth and maximize the
benefits of infrastructure developments across the continent.
With simple observation, one can soon
learn that the monetary value of Projects in Africa is far less than their
counterparts anywhere else. While most of the engineering estimates and the
construction costs for major infrastructure projects are done by, and the
origins of technologies are from the established companies based in the
developed world, when it is for Africa, project values are by far less than it
could be in Europe or North America. Although there are marginal gains with
respect to cheap labor in Africa, if not counter balanced by the transport
costs, the convincing reasons for the lower value of projects is mainly due to
the possibility of lower level of performance and provision of lower quality
products, if not damping scraps. In
this regard, the scarcity of testing
laboratories for the ever changing technologies and the low level of expertise in Africa are the main
underlying drivers for a go ahead to lower prices and ultimately to less
quality infrastructure developments.
Sometimes, it is unfortunate to see
that projects are awarded to management companies which after taking the lion’s
share of the project budget for nothing and transfer them for the real builders
with incomparably less price, which ends in compromising the quality, while it
is possible to award the projects directly to the builders and maintain the
standards. In some instances, projects are defaulted to international
competitors while they can be built with local capacity with less overall cost.
An expert who knows what s/he is
doing and never does compromise in quality is sought after in the Africa soil
right now. After all the Africans’ deserve long term and sustainable services
from their infrastructure developments be it road, power, health, education,
telecom, water, or anything else!
African
Expertise for African Infrastructure Developments! Cheers!
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