Although more than half of the compact funds is earmarked for transportation projects, very little is going on in terms of actual construction. File Photo
A tremendous sense of urgency prevails as Tanzania mobilises to meet a deadline for spending nearly $700 million on infrastructure projects, a senior US development official said last week.
Tanzania’s progress in complying with the 2013 cutoff date will be assessed during a visit this week by Daniel Yohannes, the head of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).
Appointed by President Barack Obama, Mr Yohannes will be seeking “a ground-level, personal understanding of the challenges and results” of the MCC’s programme in Tanzania, corporation vice president for compact compliance, Patrick Fine said.
The $698 million award to Tanzania for water, transport and energy projects is the largest ever approved by the MCC. The five-year “compact” came into effect in September 2008. Under MCC rules, Mr Fine noted, all funds must be spent within the programme period or be lost forever.
“I’ve been working in the development field for 30 years, and I have never seen as much urgency with a programme as with this one,” Mr Fine said.
During his two-day visit Mr Yohannes will not see many results of the MCC’s investment. “There aren’t a lot of bulldozers working on roads. The first 20 months of the compact have been devoted to carrying out engineering studies and letting contracts,” Mr Fine said.
He offers the example of a 40-kilometre-long electric transmission cable with a fibre-optic telecom wire that will replace an existing submarine cable between the mainland and Unguja Island. It takes 14 months just to manufacture the cable, Mr Fine points out, and another 12 months to put it into place.
When completed, this project “will allow the island to continue to develop its potential as a high-value tourist destination,” the MCC’s Tanzania compact document states. More than half of the $698 million in compact funds is earmarked for transportation projects.
Mr Yohannes and President Jakaya Kikwete will preside this week at the groundbreaking for one of them — the 68-kilometre Tanga-Horohoro Road running from the seaport of Tanga to the Kenyan border.
Other transport projects include a 224-km stretch of highway in western Tanzania that serves as the only link between Dar and Zambia.
The Mtwara Corridor, a 139-km road in southwestern Tanzania will also be rehabilitated. MCC funds will pay as well for maintenance of the Mafia Island Airport to “prevent the island’s residents from being cut off from the mainland,” the compact says.
A variety of water projects are also being carried out with the aim of protecting millions of Tanzanians from water-borne diseases.
If Tanzania meets the compact’s deadlines and remains on course with policy reforms, it could qualify for a second round of MCC aid.
