Intra-African trade really demands efficient transportation, logistics infrastructure

 While opening the three-day Africa Prosperity Dialogue (APD) taking place at Peduase in the Akuapem South Municipality in the Eastern Region yesterday, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo called on his fellow African leaders to prioritise the development of efficient transportation and logistics in­frastructure that will help boost intra-Africa trade.

He said it was only through an efficient transportation and logistics infrastructure, stream­lined trade processes and digital technologies that the continent could unlock its trade potential for prosperity for all.

We cannot agree more with President Akufo-Addo that Afri­can countries have to boost trade among themselves.

The importance of efficient transportation and logistics infrastructure to help boost the intra-Africa trade truly cannot be discounted. Listening to the President, one realises that Afri­can leaders know what will help the continent to grow and ensure prosperity for the people.

If that is really the case, then the question is why is Africa the only place on planet earth where the highest number of people living in squalor can be found?

Are African leaders just talking to prove their eloquence and to raise the expectations of their people only for the people to find out later that all the talk has turned out to be a mirage?

For Africa to boast the kind of transportation and logis­tics infrastructure President Akufo-Addo is ealking about, the individual African countries must first be committed to pro­viding such and then connecting same with each other.

It is sad to find in most African countries poor roads and the lack of other means of transport.

An efficient transport system, if we are right, must have alter­native means like railways, which can cater for the various needs of the people.

Thus, Africa must develop alternative means of transport because such a system must reduce distance, cost and time for most people while ensuring safety and comfort.

For instance, some distances to certain market centres can be shortened using railways rather than roads.

The truth is that most African countries lack transportation system that meet the efficiency criteria, which means that cost of trading among themselves is not all that convenient and less costly.

They also lack good logistics infrastructure, which comprises facilities and equipment to store and move goods or materials.

When it comes to trading, efficient transport system and good logistics infrastructure are sort of interwoven.

Even if there are efficient transportation, we cannot use old, rickety and unreliable vehi­cles to move goods and people because certain goods like food items must reach their desti­nations within certain periods, particularly when there are no storage facilities on the way to take them in.

Delay can destroy them and bring unbudgeted-for cost.

We think the call by President Akufo-Addo has therefore come at the appropriate time because it is an admission that African countries are lagging behind in foundations that can make them succeed in trade among them­selves.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretar­iat should, therefore, make it a point to get African countries to get committed to providing the necessary infrastructure for intra-African trade.

With AfCFTA’s major objec­tive of creating a single African market, it is only that stand which can help it succeed in its mission and its success can have a critical impact on the conti­nent’s prosperity.

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