Tanzania’s standard gauge railway project – that seeks to open up quicker transport corridors towards the vast hinterland of Burundi, DRC, Rwanda, and Uganda – is the most advanced on the continent, but also a victim of a lack of private sector financing.
Just over a decade ago as he appeared on a panel at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Addis Ababa, the late Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi was asked by journalist Robyn Curnow about the minor level of private investment in African infrastructure. “I am not surprised because the private sector can take risks up to a certain limit and they need sizable returns,” Zenawi responded. “Infrastructure is a high-risk business and therefore needs high returns. So it is very unlikely that the infrastructure gap in Africa is going to be filled by the private sector,” he said.we will wait another 30 years before the gap is filled
. [The] public sector has to come in and fill the gaps that cannot be filled by the private sector,” he said.