Africa Infrastructure Upgrades

JOHANNESBURG — South Africa has renewable resources that can provide solutions to the country's energy problems and create jobs — while fighting global warming, Greenpeace officials said Wednesday.
"Greenpeace's estimate that 78,000 green jobs could be created is conservative," Glen Mpufane, who heads a development group, who joined a Greenpeace forum on green jobs on Wednesday.
Unemployment is around 25 percent in South Africa, which was hard hit by the global recession

"We are asking from the government to be more ambitious in their targets of generating electricity from renewable energy," said Melita Steele, a Greenpeace energy and climate campaigner. "A minimum of 36 percent of the country's electricity should come from renewed energy sources by 2030."

With regards to the economic impact, South Africa has demonstrated that it has the infrastructure and the capability to warrant serious investment consideration.
It is still too early for a precise indication of the benefits the 2010 World Cup will have on our economy.

However, it is clear that a healthy return on investment is expected on the thirty three billion rand spent on transport infrastructure, telecommunications and stadiums.

It is estimated the tournament will add zero point four percent to the country''s real Gross Domestic Product.

Another important factor is that the successful hosting of the event, in the midst of a global economic downturn, clearly proves the economic prowess of the country.

We have earned the reputation of a country that can deliver on its undertakings.
The World Cup now opens the country to further investment, growth in trade and economic opportunities.

Maputo - Mozambique's government has signed off on a $2bn plan to build a second hydro-electric dam in the north of the country in a bid to boost the economy, state media reported on Wednesday.

Mphanda Nkuwa dam will be built in the northwestern province of Tete and produce 2 400 megawatts of electricity at full capacity once completed, Noticias newspaper said.

Cahora Bassa is Africa's largest energy-producing dam, providing 2 075 megawatts of energy, of which 60% is sold to neighbouring South Africa.

Most of the customs revenue is produced by South Africa, the continent's largest economy, and about 90 percent of the SACU region's GDP is generated by South Africa.

"The global economic crisis has highlighted the flaws in the revenue-sharing mechanism, particularly its pro-cyclical character," said Peter Draper, head of the trade programme at SAIIA, and intern Memory Dube, in an article marking the centenary of the customs union on 29 June, Scoping the future of SACU - a hundred years on.

"While revenues escalated dramatically, and unsustainably, in the run-up to the financial crisis, they have dropped just as sharply since. Further, in South Africa there is consensus in official structures that the country cannot afford to indefinitely carry the fiscal burden imposed on it by the revenue-sharing formula."

Draper said an "abrupt withdrawal" by South Africa from SACU would "effectively create two failed states in Swaziland and Lesotho", with all the associated economic, social and political fallout, in a region already grappling with Zimbabwe's astonishing 10-year economic decline.

Africa will need to add 770 aircraft by 2029 to its current fleet of about 635 to sustain growth, says Embraer’s Outlook on Africa.

Regional airlines are strengthening their networks, but the current fleet with an average age of 13 years does not provide efficiencies to sustain expected growth. The 61- to 120-seat jet segment will be essential for sub-regional connectivity, says Embraer. Last year, 62 million passengers flew on Africa’s 98 airlines from 345 airports in 2009.

Embraer forecasts a requirement for 220 new jets for Africa in the next 20 years in the 30- to 120-seat segment; 67% will be needed to support growth and 33% to replace older aircraft. The current fleet in this segment will increase from 165 to 280. However, Boeing’s outlook says 110 regional jets will be delivered in the period to Africa.

There are those who cannot think of Africa without thinking of safari animals. Apparently, Southern Sudan's city planners are among them. Authorities in what may become Africa's newest country, depending on the outcome of a referendum next year, have unveiled plans to rebuild their two biggest cities in the shape of a rhinoceros and a giraffe.

The £6.5bn, 20-year, blueprint for Juba, the south's capital, calls for its urban centre to be built in the shape of a rhino. The second city, Wau, is to be transformed into a giraffe.

Daniel Wani, of the housing and physical planning ministry, described the plans as "innovative" and said talks were under way with a local construction company and a Canadian-based firm.

Tomorrow in this case could be a long time coming. Sudan's disastrous civil war, sometimes counted as the continent's longest, left Juba as little more than a tent city. In the five years since a peace deal was agreed there has been a manic burst of construction but infrastructure remains basic.

There are less than 100 kilometers of paved roads and much of the accommodation in Juba is in refashioned shipping containers. The city is ringed with growing slums.

"This is just one of a collection of crazy ideas," said a Juba-based contractor familiar with the blueprints. "It's very unlikely to ever happen."

LISTED mobile serve provider, Safaricom is set to launch its M-Pesa services in South Africa, Africa’s Economic powerhouse at the end of August.
This was revealed when the firm announced that its money transfer service, M-Pesa has so far netted 11.89 million customers, a 60 per cent growth as at last month compared to 7.4 million last year.

The operator said that though the number is high, only 176,000 are active customers. The service was expected to deepen financial access in rural Kenya, especially areas with scarce banking infrastructure.

The bag, which fits into the neck of an ordinary water bottle, was developed by scientists at Stellenbosch University in South Africa to help communities with no water purification facilities to clean their water. The bags are made of inexpensive tea bag material but instead of containing tea they contain nano-scale antimicrobial fibers that filter out contaminants and microbes, and granules of activated carbon that kill the bacteria. The nano-fibers are about one hundredth the width of a human hair.

China Railway Group Ltd., the world’s second-largest publicly traded heavy construction company, said it is in talks with South Africa’s government for a $30 billion high-speed rail project between Johannesburg and Durban.

Discussions are at an early stage and no funding is in place, China Railway Chairman Li Changjin said in an interview in Beijing today. China Railway has signed an agreement with Standard Bank Group, Ltd., Africa’s biggest lender, Li said, without elaborating.

Ross Linstrom, a spokesman for Johannesburg-based Standard Bank, declined to comment in a text message today. The lender sold a 20 percent stake to the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in 2008 as part of a plan to profit from growing trade between Africa and China.