CONGO-TRANSPORT: Reviving the Idea of a Bridge On the River Zaire

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nana Rosine Ngangoue

BRAZZAVILLE, Nov 7 1996 (IPS) - The idea of building a bridge over the river that separates Congo and Zaire, and their capitals, is once again on the cards here, according to the Congolese authorities.

“Our ambition is to have a road and railway bridge across the River Congo built ‘tomorrow’,” Congo’s State Minister for Transport and Civil Aviation Victor Tamba Tamba told an international meeting on transport in Sub-Saharan Africa, held here on Oct. 28.

The stretch of river that separates Kinshasa and Brazzaville “is one of the compulsory crossings along the route between the Great Lakes countries and the port of Pointe Noire, which is justifiably considered the gateway to Central Africa,” Tamba Tamba explained.

The real author of the project is Congolese President Pascal Lissouba, who sees it as a way to foster regional integration. His aim is to transform Congo into a transit point for goods from Europe or West Africa destined for countries in the Great Lakes Region such as Rwanda and Burundi, and even Southern African nations. For now, however, it is still just an idea.

Congo’s main trump card is the 510-km railway that links its Atlantic Ocean port of Pointe Noire and Brazzaville. A bridge over the River Congo — called the River Zaire in Zaire — would enhance trade between the two countries and with Zaire’s eastern neighbours, the authorities in Brazzaville feel.

According to Tamba Tamba, it is mainly a matter of reminding African transport authorities that it is an illusion to think that development can come about if each country goes it alone.

There are few transport links among Central African countries and between the sub-region and the rest of Africa. Nor have governments appeared to view expanding the existing links as a big priority.

Generally, “the idea of self-reliance that has prevailed since independence led the new states to think strictly in terms of a national framework rather than joint action,” said Olivier Ninot of the University of Paris X in France, who participated in the meeting.

“As a result, Benin and Togo scrapped a project which would have given them a joint port and each went on to build one (in 1965 and 1968 respectively) ,” he recalled, adding that each of the two ports was just about 100 kms from the other.

The idea of a bridge over the River Congo is another project that was sacrificed on the altar of political considerations. It first came up in 1963, as Congolese Special Presidential Adviser Stephane Maurice Bongo-Nouarra pointed out.

“I recall that Pascal Lissouba, then prime minister, had handed over the file to me. But it turned out that there was no agreement between Congo and Zaire. I remember that when Congo approved the project, Zaire expressed reservations about it. And when Zaire finally accepted it, Congo wasn’t ready.

“It must also be said that there was a political difference between the two states. While Congo was communist, Zaire was into liberalism.”

However, some people feel that before reviving the idea of a bridge over the River Zaire, the two countries should concentrate on rehabilitating their transport infrastructure.

“It’s really a misuse of language to speak of a transport system, meaning a coherent body of interlinked components, in Congo,” said Dieudonne Mboukou-Mboungou, another participant in the meeting. “The whole sector appears, in fact, to be very fragmented and disorganised.”

There are just 795 kms of railways and about 17,000 km of roads and tracks — only some 10 percent of which are asphalted — in Congo, which has an area of 342,000 sq.km. Many of the roads are in a poor state, but there is little investment in road repair.

The Central African nation also has 5,000 kms of navigable rivers.

Zaire, too, is no transporter’s paradise. Of the estimated 145,000 kms of roads only 2,500 km are surfaced and most of the network is in a poor state of repair, according to ‘Africa South of the Sahara 1996’, a reference book produced annually by Europa Publications Limited in Britain.

Zaire has an area of 2.35 million sq.km, more than France, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland combined.

Francois Matika, a Brazzaville merchant, also feels that the emphasis should be on repairing the existing infrastructure rather than sinking money into new initiatives.

“Before thinking of a bridge over the Congo, which will certainly be extremely expensive, let’s first see how we can improve things in the country,” he says. “That’s the only way this project, which seems vital for Africa, can succeed.

“You see, if transport is defective, disorganised or insufficient within countries, there is no way such a project can succeed.”