Ambassador Amina Mohammed’s clarification that Kenya had in fact not signed a specific Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Ethiopia for a pipeline but only for general energy concerns has been viewed as another public relations gaffe in recent times by the Jubilee administration.
Many observers are beginning to find these mistakes extremely harmful to the performance of foreign policy.
Theoretically this could contribute to age-old debates as to whether external relations should be as per tradition a strict closed matter or whether it should adapt to various public engagements as required in democratic practice of government.
What is clearly emerging is that the old notions of the exceptional Kenya on account of its geostrategic position have to be rethought as the country maneuvers new demands on its external relations.
The idea that the country has to pursue hegemony is obsolete because its neighbors are not willing to accept such position within its ranks of cooperation.
If one is to look at the infrastructure outlay of the region and the role of Kenya in it with relation to East Africa, it is indeed clear that the country’s foreign policy is evolving to extend its reach beyond the East African Community (EAC).
The Coalition of the Willing (CoW) died a natural death because it was a three-legged stool that could not hold further prospects into the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA).
Despite Tanzania not being a member infrastructure development spill immense benefit if one thinks of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) being developed by COMESA, the EAC and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC).
Having this in mind, it would seem Kenya has to reinvent its pragmatism. This should be based on understanding the spectrum of demand from its different ideological, political, sectoral and societal constituencies rather than reaction to the international environment alone.
The challenge here is how to understand Kenyan pragmatism in new times particularly when one is thinking of emerging infrastructure in relation to the region.
What is all this fuss about mega infrastructure?
In legal lingo, people are always said to be ‘seized’ of a matter, and that is exactly what has happened to Kenyans in recent times with the debate concerning the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and competition between countries in East Africa over the construction of oil pipelines among other projects.
Public debate on the issue has mainly been dominated by Dr David Ndii together with those who are for or against his arguments to a relevant degree. Another angle of discussion has also been dominated on the issue of whether Kenyan influence is in decline.
Meantime the government continues to get egg on its face following missteps that have led it to clarify on more than one occasion whether it has signed deals with its neighbours or not.
This is exemplified by the fact that no sooner had Uganda and Rwanda taken up their Tanzanian alternative, the saving grace action of talking to Ethiopia seems to have embarrassingly blown up in smoke for those announcing a so called deal confirming construction of a pipeline with its northern neighbour.
Nonetheless the Kenyan public should get used to more debates about development of infrastructure; be it roads, railway, dams, of roads, railways, ports, underwater internet cables and electrical power plants among others. Infrastructure is desperately needed to unlock not only the country’s potential but that of the region and the continent as a whole.
Decision makers, policy practitioners, various analysts or investors all understand that there is a direct link between lack of infrastructure and the fact that most African countries, especially in the Sub – Saharan region, are uncompetitive in comparison to the rest of the world.
According to the Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic (AICD) the continent needs USD $93 billion over the next 10 years to facilitate infrastructure development. The dire demand for these projects is to forestall a situation in which growth is undermined by 2% every year while productivity is hampered by almost 40%.
Kenya, like its neighbours and most African countries, has therefore pegged its hopes of emerging into a productive country with massive socio-economic changes on the basis of infrastructure development. This is expected to stimulate economic growth for its people.
However, a conundrum emerges on three main fronts. First, is on account of the means by which the entire required infrastructure is to be attained. Second, concerns the consequences that will arise subsequent to taking decisions of developing infrastructure particularly on such a grand scale.
Lastly, the question of how benefits will accrue across the spectrum, during construction and upon the completion of projects, to the general public and the wider region is of great importance.
Dr Ndii has consistently contextualized this in his Saturday Nation critique on what it means for Kenya by raising questions over what the cost implications of overall investment will be, how projects such as the SGR will be financed and the expected consequences for the economy and society at large.
Planning of whatever kind that goes into considering such large scale developments has to look at the economic benefits in relation or comparison to the social costs beyond the financial dimensions of infrastructure investment. Essentially this must look into the direct impact on lives of ordinary citizens. This means specifying the implications of anticipated enhanced efficiency that projects are expected to have on people’s livelihoods; the social benefits; and professed new opportunities.
Unfortunately there may be negative implications arising out of subliminal prestige in relation to the political, technological, economic or aesthetic attachment toward mega projects.
Bent Flyvbjerg, of the Saïd Business School at Oxford University, has conducted research to show how globally the combination of so called transcendent initiatives is a thin balancing act between achieving success and plunging into the depths of unfathomable debt.
This can be on a political, technological, business or even an aesthetic level.
Politically decision makers and policy practitioners reap dividends from the construction of numerous monuments to satisfy constituencies for different reasons. This is on account of the visibility such projects generate within the public through the media.
On the technological front engineers and specialists get a buzz out of pushing the hi-tech envelope for what is possible during the construction processes.
Business people and trade unions also reap big from such initiatives because the economic dividends mean that various individuals or entities get to profit from contracts and jobs emerging from megaprojects.
Large infrastructure initiatives develop a whole chain of beneficiaries from: workers in construction or transportation, consultants, bankers, investors, landowners, lawyers, and even developers.
Lastly, mega projects offer a great deal of aesthetic pleasure. Afro-optimists on the internet derive a great deal of joy, sharing pictures of the unseen modern Africa ignored by biased Eurocentric editors who still view the continent as a land of war and hunger.
Nonetheless it should not be lost to designers or people who are taken in by the iconic beauty of such projects that a great deal of money and other resources are expended to achieve that momentous imagery captured in photos.
Ultimately, all three elements can conspire against a country if proper considerations as to the driving motivations in pursuing mega projects are not put into proper perspective.
Kenyan citizenry therefore have to concisely examine the role of such projects in their lives so that they work towards reaping benefits they desperately yearn for in achieving the visions of a prosperous future.
Kenya and the East African Infrastructure Agenda
According to the Virtual PIDA (Program for Infrastructure Development in Africa) Information Centre (VPiC), East Africa’s regional infrastructure agenda comprises of the development of the Northern Multimodal Corridor, the Central Multimodal Corridor and the Lamu Gateway Development whose port project extends into what is referred to as the Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia (LAPSSET) project.
Kenya is therefore fortunate to have two major infrastructure initiatives under the PIDA, boosting its international prestige as a strategic location in accessing the continent’s hinterland.
PIDA serves as the unifying continental initiative holistically focusing on: transport, energy, trans-boundary water and telecommunication/ICT. PIDA hopes to be the ultimate solution that enables Africa’s interconnectivity that will thereby spur integration on the basis of improved regional infrastructure.
It has wide buy-in of the African Union Commission (AUC), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development Planning and Coordination Agency (NEPAD Agency), and the African Development Bank (AfDB).
PIDA is essentially a consolidative initiative that harmonises regional and continental infrastructure master or action plans.
This started out by looking into previously relevant work undertaken by: the African Union (AU), regional economic Communities (RECs), regional or continental technical agencies including the lake and river basin organizations and power pools and the concerned countries; to merge into one continental agenda.
Estimates show that PIDA’s projects will cost up to $360 billion in 2040. In this regard, PIDA has identified 51 Priority Action Projects (PAP), whose cost estimate stands at $68 billion between 2012 and 2020 or $7.5 billion in annual expenditure.
Since PIDA’s spending represents about 17% of the anticipated $45 billion annual increases in infrastructure spending, the way in which it is harmonized with other infrastructure spending on the continent is very important.
An intended outcome of PIDA is that it would support economic integration of Africa and its nine regional economic communities (RECs) through fixing the continental infrastructure gap. In the case of the East Africa, this would manifest not only in the EAC but also in the COMESA.
The Northern and Central Multimodal Corridor serve as key elements of an African Regional Transport Infrastructure Network (ARTIN) which hopes to develop routes at the least economic cost, with priority for opening up landlocked countries, while minimizing the environmental impact of transport infrastructure and services.
Development of modern ARTIN corridors also includes harmonizing them together with gateway ports and air transport services, to bring the performance of components up to best world practice in efficiency, cost, reliability and safety. In order to do this the key therefore lies with including the private sector in these activities.
Kenya’s Northern Corridor is therefore meant to ensure the modernization of highest priority projects to include climbing lanes and urban bypasses in East Africa.
This is aimed to facilitate travel by people and goods across borders between Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC while also spur development all the way to South Sudan.
The Lamu Gateway Development responds to Eastern Africa’s challenge in developing sufficient port capacity to handle future demand from both domestic sources and landlocked countries. This project is expected to also facilitate demand from the SADC making it the one with the highest priority in the region.
Tanzania’s Central Corridor has the least priority of the three. Its projects are less ambitious in that while it is also key to the modernization of an ARTIN corridor in facilitating interconnectivity between Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and DRC it lacks the sophisticated designs of the Northern corridor.
It was also expected to cost the least at estimated $840 million in comparison the Lamu Gateway at $5.9 billion and the Northern Corridor $1 billion according to initial PIDA estimates.
The Central Corridor therefore proves a great deal more interesting to the private sector involvement considering the diverse access to the newly discovered and previously existing natural resources along its trajectory.
Recent discovery of helium adds to the list of oil or gas finds that have excited both government and markets. However the central corridor is likely to optimise a nascent extractive industry extending into Burundi and the DRC.
Enormous nickel deposits among other rare earth minerals would be exported to the tune of 1.5 million tons to 3 million tons of concentrates a year.
Essentially, despite effectiveness of the Northern Corridor in terms of speed or lower cost of transport on account of geostrategic advantage, Tanzania’s Central Corridor is offering new opportunities in addition to the transport alternative it once served to Kenya’s dominance in linking its coastal hub to the regional hinterland.
Unlike Tanzania, the Kenyan projects have reportedly experienced a ballooning of costs. This can be attributed corruption, which the UK Daily Mail has described as a standard “30% skimming off the top of contracts”.
This has not attracted the immediate financing necessary particularly from the private sector in light of the controversy of Eurobond expenditure. On account of his stint as Tanzania’s roads and infrastructure minster, current President John Magufuli managed to accelerate delivery of projects.
This enabled the country move many of its projects from program or project structuring for the purposes of obtaining financing to implementation or operational stages. It is therefore this newly found competitive edge that is giving Kenya sleepless nights.
Kenya’s woes are then compounded by fears arising out of the threat of terrorist attacks on installations going by emboldened attacks by Somalia’s Al-Shabaab terror group in areas where projects should be taking place.
Moreover the region became anxious following the behaviour of politicians who spewed hate speech thereby raising the spectacle of another round of violence in the coming elections.
So much that the 300km long Uganda-Kenya pipeline that was meant to lower costs in the mode of transporting petroleum products lost out to a new deal between Uganda and Tanzania that has not even been featuring in continental priority plans.
The Regional Energy Race
Like the Leprechaun’s pot of gold or the mythical Holy Grail, oil production and its transportation is being aggressively pursued in the East Africa region. Kenya’s most recent find in Kerio Valley offers a second oil basin after its Turkana find.
Uganda has also discovered natural gas in addition to the oil it discovered in 2006. Meanwhile other than oil, Tanzania seems to have made history with the number of consecutive finds but more importantly its reserves that are said to be some of the largest in the world.
This has put the East African region on the world energy map as a major exploration frontier preparing the respective countries to become major oil and gas exporter for the first time. This has put huge expectations for the project.
While government seeks new revenue streams from this resource, local communities are anticipating new much needed development in their areas.
On the other hand local businesses are preparing to make a profit from engaging with oil exploring companies. Meanwhile the oil exploration entities seek to recoup their investment
It is within this context, that the 300km long Uganda-Kenya pipeline was developed as the main PIDA priority action plan project prior to the shift towards Tanzania by Kampala. Kenya therefore sought to maximise its strategic location to transport East Africa’s oil to the international market.
According to VPIC, oil products were expected to be transported over a distance of more than 1100 kilometres between Uganda and Kenya. This would enhance the supply of such products to western Kenya and neighbouring countries so as to meet growing demand.
Constructing petroleum pipelines is expected to result in far lower transportation costs currently incurred by the use of roads. The savings are expected to contribute to other important sector of the economy.
It would also serve to reduce consumer pump prices, decrease highway road congestion by haulier tankers that transport fuel and act as a safety measure that prevents likelihood of oil spills that have harmed the public in the recent past.
Demand for petroleum products is increasing in the East Africa region. The demand would therefore be addressed by connecting Eldoret in Kenya with Jinja in Uganda and thereby continuing on to Kampala.
It will be a key intermediate link in the East African oil pipeline infrastructure and will enhance the supply of oil products to the western parts of Kenya as well as neighbouring countries.
However, while many commentators have viewed this project as purely a matter of the EAC, the sphere of influence it targets goes beyond that towards the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa.
This can therefore genuinely explain Kenya’s frustration with the recent outcome. A short-term perspective would see the pipeline as an opportunity to achieve region hegemony. This would be a shallow viewpoint considering the opportunity to extend significant Kenyan influence into COMESA.
Loss of the pipeline deal went on to diminish the factor of oil development as a growing critical element of national interest that would offer strategic capabilities at a geopolitical and economic level in East plus Southern Africa.
This would obviously be looked at from the prospects of the TFTA between COMESA, EAC & SADC.
Unfortunately, driven by a realist short term nationalistic perspective in its foreign policy actions, Kenya went on to announce the signing of a pipeline deal with Ethiopia. This later proved not to be true considering there were no pipeline specifics in the MoU that was generally concerned with energy issue.
Memory should have served any official before hurriedly issuing such a statement. Ethiopian Prime Ministers, the late Meles Zenawi and Hailemariam Desalegn have been more interested with the issue of port or roads capacity with LAPSSET and development of geothermal energy based on their own resource potential.
In any case, according to PIDA priority action plan projects, it’s more immediate energy concerns lie with its development of the Great Millennium Renaissance Dam that is developing a 5,250 MW plant to supply domestic market and export electricity for the East Africa Power Pool (EAPP) market.
By extension Ethiopia also has greater interest in securing the North–South Power Transmission Corridor. This project seeks to develop a 8,000 km line from Egypt through Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe to South Africa.
Knowing and analysing her neighbours more by their desires rather than their words would thus better serve Kenya. This is always important in external relations. For that is the only way in which to support the exploration of alternative sources of traditional and renewable energy in order to achieve the aims of Kenyan economic diplomacy