The world Bank has said that Africa had the weakest infrastructure in the world and would need more than one trillion dollars in the next decade to resuscitate its poor state of infrastructure.
A world bank report, entitled, “Africa’s Infrastructure : A Time for Transformation’’, made available in Abuja said about $93 billion would be spent annually for a decade to improve infrastructure.
“With weak infrastructure, ironically Africans in some countries pay twice as much for basic services as people elsewhere,” the report added.
According to the report, almost half of the amount will be needed to address the continent’s current power supply crisis that has hindered Africa’s growth.
“The new estimate amounts to roughly 15 per cent of the continent’s gross domestic product (GDP), comparable to what China invested in infrastructure over the last decade,”’ the report said.
The report, based on a study of 24 African countries, said the poor state of infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa – electricity, water, roads, and information and communications technology (ICT) – cuts national economic growth by 2 percentage points every year.
“It reduces business productivity by as much as 40 percent,”’ the report said.
The report adds that the existing spending on African infrastructure was much higher than previously known, $45 billion a year.
According to the report, most of the amount was domestically financed by African tax payers and consumers.
The report also found that there was considerable wastage to address, a number of efficiency improvements could potentially expand the available resources by a further $17 billion.
Source African Press Agency
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