Report of the round table: with donors on the financing of transit transport project of Zaire

Abstract

Zaire was the only semi land locked African country. Its vast surface area and location in the centre of African made it part of the many networks operating in the sub region, whereas some of its national networks had no interconnection. In 1978, ECA had sent a preliminary mission to Zaire to identify transport problems and to begin drafting solutions. All the financial, technical and political problems had been reviewed with the officials of the Executive Council of Zaire and the mission had concluded that the country needed, in the long term, a national transport network linking Shaba province to a deep water port. However, existing infra structures would have to be continually rehabilitated and maintained in the short and medium terms. The meeting considered in all a total of 59 projects estimated to cost 2,239 billion $ with the foreign cost component being 1, 555 billion $. Out of this large amount of the foreign cost component of the projects in which some interest was expressed was only 380 million $ or 24.43 %.