Sub-Saharan Africa has a serious infrastructure deficitOCoestimated at about $48 billion a yearOCowhich is impeding the continentOCOs competitiveness and hence its economic growth. How to solve this problem? Some advocate building more infrastructure while others suggest privatizing, or contracting out to the private sector, the management of infrastructure so that the discipline of the market will lead to more and better quality services.This book graphically illustrates the problem in the case of AfricaOCOs ports. With ...
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Sub-Saharan Africa has a serious infrastructure deficitOCoestimated at about $48 billion a yearOCowhich is impeding the continentOCOs competitiveness and hence its economic growth. How to solve this problem? Some advocate building more infrastructure while others suggest privatizing, or contracting out to the private sector, the management of infrastructure so that the discipline of the market will lead to more and better quality services.This book graphically illustrates the problem in the case of AfricaOCOs ports. With the exception of Durban, cargo dwell timesOCothe amount of time cargo spends in the portOCoaverage about 20 days in African ports, compared with 3OCo4 days in most other international ports. None of the past attempts to solve this problem have worked. The reasonOCoand this is the major contribution of this volumeOCois that long dwell times are in the interest of certain public and private actors in the system. Importers use the ports to store their goods. Customs brokers have little incentive to move the goods because they can pass on the costs of delay to the importers. And when the domestic market is a monopoly, the downstream producer has an incentive to keep the cargo dwell times long as a way of deterring entry of other producers. The net result is inordinately long dwell times, ineffective interventions, and globally uncompetitive industries in African countries. The solution to decrease dwell time in these ports relies mainly on the challenging task of breaking the private sectorOCOs collusion and equilibrium between public authorities, logistics operators, and some shippers and not on investing massively in infrastructure. Addressing the challenge will also require that there be political support from the general public for reforms that will promote their interests. And before they offer their political support, the public needs to be informed. This book is a step in that direction.
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Add this copy of Why Does Cargo Spend Weeks in Sub-Saharan African Ports to cart. $47.66, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2012 by World Bank Publications.
