Quality of Infrastructure Services

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AFRICA
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S SILK ROAD
:
CHINA AND INDIA
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S NEW ECONOMIC FRONTIER
infrastructure-related constraints, the poor quality of power services is the leading bottleneck, causing interruptions in production and thus revenue losses. (Owning generators only adds production costs) The limited availability of communications networks also costs firms marketing opportunities. Transportation costs are also excessively high in Africa due to poor road, port, and aviation services quality, as discussed in chapter 5. Economic sparseness is a considerable obstacle to the quality of infrastructure services in the region, but it is clear that the quality of management of infrastructure systems is also questionable. The most recent progress in infrastructure in Sub-Saharan African countries has been made in the area of telecommunications, where the successful incorporation of private providers of cellular infrastructure has enhanced the overall accessibility of telecommunications networks. The least progress has been made in electricity, where effective reforms of national companies still lag.
Electricity
Based on the ICA data in Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, as well as a comparable data set for Ghana, figure 4.18 presents reported average interruptions of electricity as a percentage of production time and average revenues lost due to electricity outages from public grids, by size category and 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 0
5 10 15 20 25 30 35
avg. export intensity
a. Local competitors
b. Import competitors from
China and India
avg. number of local
competitors
0 1
2 3
4 5
6 7
8 0
10 20 30 40 50 60

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