In his budget speech recently, the Minister of Works highlighted the government plans to invest in more roads so as to address bottleneck points and ease movement of people and goods, within the country, but also with other countries.
Africa in general lags behind in road density compared to the World average. While there has undoubtedly been progress throughout Africa in improving the road network, the challenges remain immense. With an average of 204 kilometres of roads per 1,000 square kilometres, of which only one quarter is paved, the density of national roads in Africa lags far behind the world average of 944 kilometres per 1,000 square kilometres, of which more than half are paved. According to the World Bank, in addition to the small number of major regional trunk roads currently linking deep-sea ports to economic hinterlands, which comprise around 10,000 kilometres: “between 60,000 and 100,000 kilometres of roads are required to provide intracontinental connectivity” in Africa.
