Beneath the surface of the Maputo Corridor
Regionalism and Uneven Development in Southern Africa: The Case of the Maputo Development Corridor
Edited by Frederik Soderbaum and Ian Taylor
2003, Ashgate
150 pages
Reviewed by James Lamont
During South Africa’s first 10 years of democracy, the Maputo Corridor was held up by the ruling African National Congress as its flagship development project.
This book, in Ashgate’s Making of Modern Africa series, digs beneath the surface of what has been widely acclaimed as a success story to expose some of the Maputo Corridor’s shortcomings. In doing so, the book sheds valuable light on how the South African government struggles to unite private capital, local people and its neighbours in southern Africa to bring about development.
The revitalisation of the transport link between industrial Gauteng and the Indian Ocean port of Maputo, along which cargoes, migrant workers and travellers had trundled for more than a century, offered itself as an early priority in the post-apartheid era. For the new South African government, it was an opportunity to show the region that South Africa after years of isolation was prepared to reach out to its neighbours with capital, expertise and goodwill in the name of reconstruction.
The Maputo Corridor also encapsulated a compelling economic vision. Its joining of public and private resources to reverse the former apartheid regime’s regional destabilisation was strongly championed by South African ministers, foremost among them Trevor Manuel, the current finance minister, and Alec Erwin, the then minister for trade and industry. For them, the Maputo Corridor was a torchbearer of the fast track development they hoped would lead to higher growth rates and greater employment.
The view from Maputo was, however, altogether less certain. Mozambicans had doubts about being dwarfed by their powerful neighbour and were wary of finding their economy swamped by South African goods. The book reflects that uncertainty, but perhaps not as strongly as it might have since it draws m
| "Mozambicans had doubts about being dwarfed by their powerful neighbour and were wary of finding their economy swamped by South African goods" |
Much of the headline coverage of the Maputo Corridor has been positive, erring on the side of the uncritical. A new toll road that cut down the travelling time between the two cities and the prospect of reestablishing a conduit for sea trade were enough to convince people of its worth. From a South African and international point of view, the project declared Mozambique, hitherto rated one of the poorest countries in the world, open to business, particularly to big industrial projects.
There were presidential opening ceremonies and investor conferences that spawned a wave of initiatives including the breaking down of game park fences between the two countries, BHP Billiton’s Mozal aluminium smelter and the development of gas fields to the north by South African oil company, Sasol.
At its best, ‘The Case of the Maputo Development Corridor’ delves beneath these "miracle" achievements and exposes many of the underlying failures and disappointments of the project.
Three core chapters on the role of the state, the governance of the Maputo Corridor and public-private partnerships stand out for their examination of the tensions within the project and the integrity of its goals. Another commendable chapter, that offers an analysis of the Mozal smelter project, underlines the difficulties of trying to meet wider development goals in Africa by introducing internationally competitive industry.
The book is sharply critical of the top-down approach to the project, which it identifies as responsible for overlooking micro-development. But one of its most striking acknowledgements is how little institutional capacity there appears to have been at the top on both sides of the border - a flaw that appears to have brought the project close to crisis point on several occasions.
The book complains: "The regime in Maputo has thus far demonstrated a lack of commitment and has devoted very limited institutional resources for its functioning, reflected by the fact that the Maputo Corridor unit in the Department of Transport in Maputo is more or less non-functioning, with very limited staff and almost non existent resources."
Indeed, the authors observed that the unit, situated on the top floor of the dilapidated Department of Transport building in Maputo, had one computer and only one (harassed) member of staff in the entire office.
That might have been expected in Maputo where institutional constraints are well known, but the weaknesses were also on the South African side. The project quickly fell into the trap, sprung often in Africa, of being a "presidential" project. Resentments among the old and new provincial leadership in Mpumalanga ceded authority over the project to the national government. The fast track approach - "like rowing a canoe with holes - if you stop you sink," according to some of the Corridor’s architects - deepened this trend, leaving its management to powerful actors in the corporate and government sectors and divorcing it from local participation.
The weakness of governance and the scepticism that big, capital intensive projects, like Mozal, have much effect on development are consistent themes in the book. But there are other insights into the project’s hindrances
like the delayed rehabilitation of Maputo’s port.
The early chapters, heavy on theory about the policy of micro-regionalism in Africa, are a challenge to readers other than those with an academic interest. They are an attempt to put the Maputo Corridor in a context, but their theoretical observations are less illuminating than the later first-hand testimony of officials that deem the project too fast and too political. These chapters also fall short of clearly drawing out lessons that might be applied to future projects or making parallels with other regional strategies.
The Maputo Corridor was intended as a clean break with earlier apartheid era development. Few would differ with its ambitions to build a cross-border economic highway to the Indian Ocean and thereby help bring the Mozambican economy to life. But ‘The case of the Maputo Development Corridor’ reminds us that there is still much to learn.
James Lamont is the World News Editor of the Financial Times, London
