Funding a major barrier to good transport infrastructure in Africa ‎―FG

THE Federal Government has stated that funding has remained a major constraint preventing the advent of solid infrastructure in the transport sector in Nigeria and the African continent as a whole.

Speaking at the opening of Africa Transport Policy Programme (SSATP) being an annual meeting of all transport Ministries in Africa held in Abuja on Monday, the Minister for transportation, Rotimi Amaechi stated that “the meeting is to ensure that we have a sustainable and organised transportation mode that will be‎ able to transport goods for both businesses, cargo and man as passengers and also to discuss the issue of urbanisation in transportation”.

Amaechi noted that “Funds is the major challenge for transport infrastructure, we need funds to enable us to build the railway, we need funds to be able to build roads, we need fund in aviation, so our greatest challenge is fund”.

He said “we are going to discuss what benefit we can get from other countries, the ones that have done better than us, we will be able to look at what we have done, we exchange ideas, even to source for funds, we will share ideas” the Minister noted.

The meeting with the theme; ‘Africa ‘s rapid urbanisation and the response to mobility in the digital era’ will look extensively into the urban transport and mobility in order to provide technical support for the development of efficient, safe and integrated urban transport system for cities in Africa.

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Participants are expected to initiate a sustainable urban mobility study to help countries developed policy recommendation and a set of priority interventions as a way to improve accessibility and mobility in African cities.

The meeting has in attendance many Ministers of Transportation from other African countries and representatives from Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Morocco, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Cote d Ivoire among other countries. The meeting will come to an on Friday the 6th of July 2018.