The only time I went to Lagos, Nigeria, was in 2005 as a young person who could feel it. I was described again as New York in acid or cocaine from the variant used in the eighties in the Big Apple. Think Michael Douglas peaking in a Lamborghini Countach on the highway.
Buzz of energy, color around decaying, decaying and incomplete buildings from the end of the 20th century, infrastructure projects from the mainland to Victoria Island. I love it, chaos tells many stories from independence in 1960 to many false promises of all democratically elected leaders and dictators along the way. This is a history that I enjoy re-reading American by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Over the weekend, Nigerians once again went to the polls to decide which promises to make. There are about 18 different parties that have promised to jump-start the economy, which, like South Africa, has floundered for the past decade and is dragging down the prospects of the sub-Saharan African region as a whole. All East African trumpets and other nodes are new growth centers for the continent but South Africa and Nigeria are the behemoths – the most important prospects.
These countries are at a similar crossroads politically. Critically, both need an injection of confidence in policymakers, who have made a brouhaha about their economic promises, but have failed to deliver. The private sector alone will not save us, except to provide generators to bellow in the dark. (What are the winning bets – generators and solar.)
While catching some Nigerian fiction and news about the elections in the country – which you can follow on Mail & Guardians — I thought about the comparison I had made between Nigeria and South Africa in the first, and admittedly very impressionable, visit to Lagos. What I wonder about is how some of the big infrastructure projects are incomplete when I go through hours of traffic because of these problems. My host commented that, for most, the money just dried up – the country could not see through it.
There are many reasons why funds will dry up. I think corruption is front of mind. Politicians and opportunists have concluded that any contract they have entered into affects working capital. The state’s inability to control this corruption over time will destroy all confidence and make it impossible, or too expensive, to raise more funds. All over the city – more than 15 million today – there are projects that serve as reminders of what could have been. Unfulfilled potential.
It’s a sad state of affairs, and one that I increasingly feel may be our fate one day. While the treasury and other institutions may try to minimize the impact of greylisting, coming three years after our relegation to “junk status”, this is not a dire warning of what will happen to South Africa. The rest of the country, and this is not the ANC, lost confidence in the eyes of both citizens and the market – which finances a day-to-day operation – approaching us to come for funds to dry up.
Today we sit with an unfinished electrical project. The Gautrain project, however, is incomplete. The unfinished Sanral-led highway expansion project. There are almost a trillion rand worth of water infrastructure projects that have not been completed or started. The list goes on. While there is still an appetite in the domestic and international markets to finance these projects as seen in the contest about the future of renewable energy, there is no wild imagination.
If the country does not start to raise its credibility in the eyes of the citizens and the market, all the projects that need to be done will hardly be able to collect the funds to complete them. Throughout this highly industrialized economy, we will see more and more “white elephants” of unfulfilled promises. That’s where we’re going.
Last week, Eskom’s outgoing CEO Andre De Ruyter rang the alarm bell and in the process signaled to the investment community that has been anxious and watching that the return of the commitment to the Transition Only $8.5 billion is at risk. Removing the damage will prove a Herculean Task. However, it is true – we better face it than sweep it under the carpet if we are to avoid missteps in Nigeria with promises we cannot keep.