Women are itching to get involved in Africa’s multibillion-dollar infrastructure industry.
It is no easy task. The sector is historically dominated by men, financial institutions turn up their noses at women attempting to access money and established companies are favored for big deals.
But Leading Women of Africa (LWA) is determined to help women not only get their foot in the door, but become the ones formulating the plans and signing deals. LWA is a network of 18,000 contacts, mostly in Africa, which links women in different countries. “If you are not on the table, you are on the menu,” says LWA president Madelein Mkunu.
LWA launched Women in Infrastructure Development in Africa (Wida) at the third Corporate G20-Africa Investment Conference in London in July. The initiative is starting to create a space for women to engage with infrastructure stakeholders in the public and private sector. “We want to support a mechanism that will increase the number of women-owned companies that are in the infrastructure sector. Also at a policy level and at a legal framework level&#8230; because that is where everything needs to start; where women need to be recognized.”
Wida aims to ensure that women’s agendas are taken seriously by institutions and by the Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa (Pida).
Pida was set up to accelerate the delivery of Africa’s current and future regional and continental infrastructure projects in transport, energy, information and telecommunications technologies, as well as trans-boundary waterways. It promotes regional economic integration by bridging Africa’s infrastructure gap. The con-tinent is the least integrated physically and economically, with intra-regional trade and global trade at 10% and 3%, respectively.
Pida, which will run until 2040, is supported by the African Union (AU) Commission, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Regional Economic Communities.
African governments are increasingly focusing on infrastructure development to grow their economies. It is estimated that poor infrastructure alone saps the continent of 2% economic growth every year.
Earlier this year, the AfDB launched a $500 million development fund to sponsor feasibility studies of large infrastructure projects across sub-
Saharan Africa. Mkunu says the LWA is in talks with the AU, Nepad and AfDB, and that Wida has been well
received all round.
“At the G20 summit… there was a strong push by the LWA, Pida department and Nepad Business Council for more women representation in infrastructure development.
“We did not expect for them to be so receptive, because we know that the issue of women and infrastructure is a new issue we are bringing up. You know, nobody really ever thought that women would be interested in this sector. We were kind of amazed about how they were willing to listen to us.”
For the LWA, it makes business sense to focus on infrastructure. The industry is growing at a rapid pace, and if Africa is serious about development, much still needs to be done.
According to Pida, only 30% of people on the continent have access to electricity, while 34% have access to roads. Internet penetration in Africa stands at just 6% and only 4% of available water resources are developed. The total cost of implementing all the projects that Pida has identified to address projected infrastructure needs by 2040 will amount to $360 billion.
“For us at LWA, yes, we do agree that the economic empowerment of women needs to start at the bottom. Women have to put food on the table and send their children to school. However, when we look at the sustainability of women’s economic empowerment, it actually involves women getting access to real projects.
“Let’s just look at the next 30 years and Pida’s goals for 2040: we don’t want to be left behind. We want to get in there while they are planning. We don’t want, by the year 2040, that they realize, ‘oh women again have been left behind’,” says Mkunu.
One woman who is grabbing the bull by the horns is South African property developer Belinda Moleko. Moleko has gone where no African has gone before. She is spearheading a $500 million project to design and build a small town near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Last year Moleko approached the Tanzanian government for a piece of land to develop. The government agreed and gave her land near Kilimanjaro, to take advantage of the high number of tourists who flock to Africa’s highest mountain, and therefore attract international investors.
“Through LWA, I presented myself to say: ‘I can do this type of thing. You offer me the land, you offer me payment guarantees, I will offer you performance guarantees’,” she says confidently.
“I was very lucky with Tanzania. They said: ‘Belinda, I will give you the MOU (memorandum of understanding) to develop 20,000 houses. We want you to create a whole new (town), like they do in South Africa.’”
The first phase of the project will see the local municipality moving its employees on site. Currently they have to travel daily from Arusha, which is about 100 kilometers away. A total of 1,400 houses with sanitation, electri-city and running water are due to be built by March next year. The town will eventually have all the amenities of a modern urban space, including schools, a library, hotels and parks.
“I’m going to leave a legacy that a woman came in and changed the face of Africa forever,” Moleko says intently.
But her dream has not been without obstacles.
“I could see there is a problem of housing, there is a problem with sanitation and that somebody needs to go in there and change it. But with this huge project on this table… I’m still finding it difficult, I cannot do it alone. I find that all the people I’m interviewing,
99 percent of them are men, and cannot believe that a black woman from South Africa has landed this project. They look at you as if to say: ‘you must have done something to deserve this’.”
One of Moleko’s major headaches has been access to finance, a common problem for women in the construction industry as well as in other sectors.
Commercial banks and even development finance institutions believe that women are more of a risk than their male counterparts. And that is even though Moleko has 20 years’ experience in the industry and her company, Bella Casa, built the first housing cluster in a South African township, Tembisa, near Pretoria.
“Take this project in Tanzania now. I have contacted banks here, and the first thing is: ‘what sureties do you have?’ I don’t have sureties, but I have a project that can give me sureties. I’m yet to see a bank that supports women without those conditions.
“I have seen ladies getting a small tender of about R100,000 ($10,000)&#8230; She gets that tender, knocks at the bank (door) to say government has given me a tender to supply them A, B, C, D. That tender even expires. That is why you see a tendency of people selling tenders to sell that project because it’s either you settle for a R1,000 ($100) or you lose.
There is no bank that wants to listen to you. They just aren’t friendly from the reception up.”
Moleko says another concern is that many women do not know how to put together a business plan, but banks and development finance institutions refuse to help them.
Although the AfDB has launched its development fund for infrastructure, Mkunu says the LWA will eventually set up its own fund to help women in infrastructure.
Moleko credits South Africa’s Trade and Industry Department for enabling her to move on the Tanzanian project. She approached the department’s gender desk to fund a $1.7 million feasibility study. After nearly five months of thorough checking, the department agreed.
But as Moleko says, governments cannot support infrastructure development on their own. Public-private partnerships, a buzzword gaining traction on the continent, are essential.
Although they look good on paper, in practice these partnerships leave much to be desired. Often projects are not completed because of logistics, non-payment by government, or even because companies run off with the cash. There are also very few systems in place to monitor what is being done, and unfinished projects are common across the continent.
Although Moleko is facing her biggest challenge so far, she believes her town will not be another half-baked project, and that once she has proved her mettle, the world is her oyster.
“We hope that from this project, all the other projects I have identified in Rwanda and Kenya, they will open themselves up.”
As a woman, Moleko’s journey has not been easy.
“In our industry, you have to be strong. It forces you to change yourself, your culture, your mannerisms, your ‘womaness’, and beat the man at his own game.”
She offers unequivocal advice for women wanting to enter the industry or those wanting to further their careers. “I always tell ladies wherever I speak: ‘Take off that apron! Don’t knock, kick (down) the door!’ Gone are the days of wanting to play housewife, cleaning. Create jobs by getting a helper to do it. Get out of your cocoon and go out there.”

Women demand a slice OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE PIE

They stretch for hundreds of kilometers. When it’s good, you feel like you are gliding over jet-black silk. But, when it’s bad, it’s like you’re juddering through dust and potholes. Driving an economy without roads is never easy. Especially when it comes to African roads, where transport costs remain among the highest in the world, according to independent analyst Andrew Maggs. The question is­: who pays for it?
The World Bank reports that only six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have more than a fifth of their roads paved. Those with the most tar roads may surprise many: Ghana; Botswana; Mauritania; Morroco; Niger and Ethiopia, far from the economic giants of the African continent.
This is a sign that Africa is crying out for investment in roads.
“At present, Africa’s road network is falling short of its function as a means to bring about greater regional integration and boost trade. For landlocked countries in Africa, transport costs, including road transport, can reach up to 75% of the value of exports. The cost of building road networks, and thereafter their maintenance, is costly,” says Maggs.
A key to investment is the Trans-African Highways System, he says. It comprises of nine main corridors on the continent, totaling over 59,000km, linking Cape Town to Cairo.
You could argue that Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the Romans did build roads that helped build an empire; roads which, to this day, still exist. On the other hand, they didn’t have to handle heavy low-load coal trucks or 16-ton wheelers carrying groceries from Durban harbor to Johannesburg along congested roads.
This kind of heavy traffic is the reason why the South African government built a wider, faster freeway through Gauteng. Now, it wants its money back. Whether they like it or not, drivers in Johannesburg are going to have to pay for the R18 billion ($1.8 billion) road the government built, stretching more than 185km around Johannesburg and Pretoria; a road that has undoubtedly eased traffic.
This has been fought through court and on the streets. The government wants people to pay R8.5 billion ($842 million) alone for a hated tolling system. On the front line is Wayne Duvenage, former Avis car rental agency owner and leader of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA).
“At this stage I want to set the record straight. We know we have to pay for the roads. Society ultimately pays for all upgrading and infrastructure development. The problem here is how we pay for the roads. As several companies started to engage with South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) we realized how onerous and cumbersome and how inefficient the system is,” says Duvenage.
There are 3.5 million people on the road in Johannesburg. In October 2007, all it took was an advert in six newspapers, which drew a mere 28 responses, to legitimize the road agency SANRAL’s project, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), he says.
No one complained when development began, before the 2010 FIFA World Cup, until the first tariff prices for e-tolls emerged, explains Duvenage. The public’s gripe is the annual R1.5 billion administrative cost, omitted by SANRAL, when the tender was gazetted. When people started adding this to the road cost of R1.9 billion ($190 million), to be paid back over 20 years, opinions started to change.
Gauteng drivers are not happy that they will pay on average R300 ($30) a month for a road for which they already pay a fuel levy and extra taxes.
Over three years, there have been numerous protests against e-tolls. Bikers have revved their anger on the highways. The South African labor union, COSATU, has blocked the traffic with slow driving, vowing to cripple the system. OUTA managed to win a court interdict banning e-tolls in April 2012. The court ruling was overturned by the South African Constitutional Court a few months later. SANRAL argued that if e-tolls were not implemented immediately the debt would be too great for the country to recover.
In mid-June, more controversy, Kapsch TrafficCom AG, the overseas company awarded the billing tender, told Bloomberg that it would get an additional annual revenue boost of R670 million ($67 million) through South Africa’s e-tolls. The announcement inflamed opinion yet again.
“Who could believe SANRAL’s claims that e-tolling is beneficial to South Africans when the only proven financial benefit to date is to Kapsch? Kapsch’s bold trumpeting of their revenue figures has unmasked e-tolling as a government-assisted [program to create] profits for a foreign-based entity,” says Duvenage.
According to Vusi Mona, SANRAL spokesperson, money will not be going overseas. All toll fees collected will go to SANRAL, except for the service costs of e-toll, which will go to Kapsch, as specified in their tender contract, he says.
Kapsch have posted an 18% drop in stock, since the delay. SANRAL has also had its fair share of knocks, their average monthly expenditure to pay for GFIP will amount to R601 million ($60 million). Credit rating agency Moody’s has announced a two notch downgrade of SANRAL’s rating. The company says it has had to suspend its marketing activities and limit the sale of its bonds to depress borrowing costs. Another cost to the public, SANRAL says, is that future road plans have been put on hold, despite a government bail-out of R2 billion ($200 million).
Had the interim interdict remained in place, parliament may have had to appropriate more money from the national revenue fund at the expense of tax payers, even those who do not live in Gauteng, says Mona.
The final appeal is to be held at the Supreme Court, on September 25 and 26. If successful, OUTA’s last roll of the dice against e-tolls could see it scrapped, leaving SANRAL to find another way of collecting the debt.
“We just don’t want to be ripped off. I think they planned this very sketchily; they didn’t do enough research. They didn’t engage properly. Now the chickens are coming home to roost,” says Duvenage.
The campaign against e-tolls is not as strong as they would have liked. Duvenage says people have had  problems digging into their pockets to win the fight. In legal fees alone, OUTA has raised R8.4 million ($840,000) but needs another R3 million ($300,000) to tackle the government in court. They need to raise R1 million ($100,000) by July 21, which the official opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has decided to fund. Duvenage estimates the government’s legal costs run more than R25 million ($2.5 million), enough to pay for 1.8km more road on the highway.
“We are fighting a case that government has free reign over our taxes to spend our tax money in the courts and society has to go out with a begging bowl,” he says.
In response to OUTA’s call for more private money, Mona says OUTA is wasting public money by going against past court rulings.
In the meantime, SANRAL’s e-toll system was awarded first place in the 2013 Toll Excellence Award for Technology by the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA). It did not win a prize in the other three categories: customer service; operations; and social responsibility.
As the debate continues, more and more anger is being generated by rises in fuel levies, food prices and the general cost of living in the city. For many of Johannesburg’s citizens, the roadways provide the only reasonable means of travel to and from work.
There is no doubt the N1 is the envy of Africa, the question is will anyone pay for it? It is likely that they will have no choice.

Swallow The Black Brick Road

Our roads are peppered with potholes; hijackings are a way of life; wildlife sometimes seems to have a vendetta against moving vehicles; traffic jams can rival the migration in the Serengeti, and all this is when we have roads to begin with! And let’s not forget the plight of the minibus drivers; having to furiously shuttle their sardine tins full of people, who are sometimes laden like hermit crabs with their personal belongings.
What is to be done about the seemingly Sisyphean mountain of obstacles that befall us as regular road users, you ask? Extreme all-terrain vehicles are, in my humble opinion, the obvious answer to Africa’s daunting road conditions. Take for example the Russian-built Viking-2992 from Aton Impulse (brought to you by the people who built some frighteningly effective submarines, so why not surface-dwelling amphibious vehicles too?). This road-legal behemoth is capable of conquering not only the worst tarmac, but it’s just as comfortable in more aquatic climes.
Looking, for all the world, like a bullfrog on steroids, the Viking’s high-flotation boat frame allows it to traverse the water at speeds of up to 15km/h. Equally suited to that leisurely weekend trip across the Vaal dam in South Africa (imagine the stares from those overpriced boats packed with scantily clad women and cigar-chomping businessmen), or those unscheduled flash floods, the car boasts pneumatic front and rear suspension and balloon tyres—equipped to “minimize environmental impact and soil damage”. Exactly what we were concerned about. And, should the humanitarian bug ever bite, the Viking makes a superb search-and-rescue vehicle; coming in a 6&#215;6 wheel configuration that can transport 12 people. Enough to make any taxi driver flush with envy; especially considering the car’s got climate control and a rear-view camera for ease of parking.
Another contender, in our bid to conquer Africa’s unforgiving terrain, is the Mercedes-Benz Zetros. The towering Teuton comes in either a four-liter six-ton payload or seven-liter, ten-ton variety. This truck is perfectly suited to hosting those pesky, end-of-month shopping expeditions with parking posing no problem—that Hummer’s roof will do nicely, thank you. Hijackers will stare agog, contemplating how on earth to scale the sides so they can point their quivering gun at the safely ensconced driver. Twin axles mean the cabin and payload move independently (like a belly dancer working her way through college)—helpful when encountering potholes the size of Australia, as we do after a brief cloud burst. Water reaching up to a height of 1,100mm (with the additional modifications) holds little fear for this übertruck. Let’s see someone try to push in front of one of these at the next intersection.
When it comes to sure-footedness though, nothing beats the insanity of the Chainlink extreme 4&#215;4. Powered by a fuel-injected five-liter V8 engine sourced from a Ford Mustang, the unique feature of this vehicle is that its one-meter-high tires dangle off the end of hydraulically controlled swing arms that can work independently or as a team. This unsurpassed articulation (two meters in total travel) means the Chainlink virtually bounds over boulders, seemingly negating the need for roads at all. While disturbing to look at, and its gait is reminiscent of a drunkard at a twisting competition, the Chainlink gets the job done.
Ever wary of expenditure, we’ve managed to uncover a more cost-effective manner of taming the African wilderness. It comes in the form of the Desert Fox conversion. Designed to fit your existing Toyota Land Cruiser or Nissan Patrol (chosen specifically for their impervious nature and easy access of parts), the kit comprises of a fully galvanized platform that simply bolts on (housing eight molded seats protected by three rollover bars) and transforms the ‘bakkie’ into a light infantry patrol vehicle. In addition, the suspension undergoes some radical reworking thanks to new leaf and coil springs, gas-powered shock absorbers, a heavy-duty steering damper and anti-sway bar.
Criminals stand no chance against the Desert Fox’s optional armor plating, and it even comes with its own water supply (100 liters) and dual battery with charging system. Making this kit a must-have for those expeditions to war-torn territories is the optional gun turret. A handy feature, to keep the masses at bay; especially if you’ve opted to purchase another product from the same company—the mobile field kitchen. Simply throw this contraption onto the tow hitch, and you can almost literally make food for Africa; 300 people at a go, and up to 1,000 in total. The kitchen uses diesel to power its hot plates (switching over to solar when hot) and can pump out 24 loaves of bread in 20 minutes. That’ll satisfy the biggest appetite! No wonder military brass, from numerous countries, are showing interest—and it’s exactly what a hungry, take-no-crap, sick-to-death-of-traffic road user really needs.
If the Desert Fox has piqued your interest in military grade vehicles, take a gander at www.milweb.net—apparently they are “the world’s largest and busiest military marketplace for military vehicles”. Nothing says “get the hell out of my way” quite like a tank, which is why we’d simply have to opt for one if we inadvertently won the Lotto. While owning and driving a tank on public roads might be completely illegal, such technicalities haven’t stopped a host of drivers in our laissez faire continent, thanks to the pliability of our cash-strapped authorities. Ah, Africa—the cradle of mankind. We might not have invented corruption, but we’ve certainly come close to perfecting it. And yet, this is our land—diverse, unique, challenging and exciting. If you don’t like it—well, you know the rest&#8230;

Tag: roads

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Women demand a slice OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE PIE

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