Fifteen COMESA countries establish road development funds

Fifteen out of 21 countries in the Common market for Eastern and Southern Africa, (COMESA) have established dedicated Road Funds and Road Development Agencies to undertake maintenance, and development of roads for both the regional and national road networks, COMESA said on its website.

 

The announcement was made on the sidelines of the 11th COMESA Joint Technical Committee meeting on infrastructure, held before the joint meeting of ministers of infrastructure responsible for transport, ICT and energy convening this Thursday, June 20 in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

The 15 countries are: Burundi, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

 

For most of these countries, funding for road maintenance has been derived from fuel levy while funding for new construction and rehabilitation has been through borrowing from development banks and support from cooperating partners.

 

Experts attending the 11th COMESA Joint Technical Committee meeting have called on the remaining countries to establish such funds.

 

The meeting observed that roads command a bigger market share for surface transport. Hence, COMESA countries have undertaken road sector management reforms to address financing of routine maintenance, rehabilitation and construction of new roads by establishing road funds administration.

 

The expert’s report and recommendations will be tabled before the joint meeting of ministers of infrastructure.

 

Meanwhile, COMESA Secretariat has so far conducted awareness workshops on the Tripartite Transport and Transit Facilitation (TTTF) Program in six Member States. This is part of a €710,000 provided by the European Union to support the awareness activities.