TheCable

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says infrastructure governance can’t improve in Africa if the recommended framework is not implemented.

Two officials of the organisation made the comments on Wednesday during a session titled ‘Public Investment Efficiency in Sub-Saharan African Countries: What Lies Ahead?’ at the ongoing Spring meetings in Washington DC.

The officials are Ha Vu, a public financial management specialist at the IMF, and Karim Barhoumi, IMF resident representative in Benin and Togo.

In response to a question on why Africa was still faced with economic challenges despite help by the IMF, Vu said: “Other development partners have tried to help African countries including the Sub Saharan African countries to improve the infrastructure governance. Who do you think should be the king actor? It’s you, Africa.

“We are here to help and support. We are here to guide because for example the framework, it cannot help to improve infrastructure governance in Africa if it is not applied.

“The role of the framework is to guide you where to look at to find the issues, how to think and how to improve and the IMF provides technical assistance to implement these reforms to get the improvement.”

Corroborating her stand, Barhoumi said spending a lot of money is not as important as the spending quality.

“You’re right, there are political economic issues as it depends on the commitment you have on the political level to also start working on projects,” Barhoumi said.

“The fund is providing this advice, this recommendation but it depends on the commitment of any country so that’s what I would like to conclude with the message of hope that the fund is always ready to help and other development partners are ready to help but also you living in Sub-Saharan African countries, you can help because the outcome that you would like to have is having better infrastructure.

“It’s not a matter of spending much more than your neighbouring country but it is the quality of your spending. With the same amount of money, we can have three bridges and we all know the economic impact of bridges but with the same amount of money, we only have two bridges because of lack of quality public management.”