Kenya tops with the highest number of mega projects in E Africa
Kenya had the highest number of mega infrastructure projects in East Africa in 2016.
Kenya’s mega projects has ensured the country stills maintain its lead as the regional powerhouse.
Similarly the Africa construction trends report, 2015 indicated Kenya had the highest number of infrastructure deals in East Africa.
They were11 ongoing projects valued at $7.01 billion (Sh727.98 billion) in the country last year the Africa Construction Trends Report, 2016 reveals.
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The top projects comprised both public and private investments such as the standard gauge railway, the Lamu port berths and the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project.
“Lake Turkana Wind Power Project is the single largest private sector investment in Kenya’s history. Once completed, it will provide 310 megawatts of power to the grid, approximately 18 per cent of Kenya’s installed capacity,” the firm stated.
Kenya was followed by Ethiopia and Uganda, each with nine projects, and Tanzania with eight.
In total, East Africa had 43 projects valued at $27.4 billion (Sh2.84 trillion) spread across Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda.
Also read : Trump, ongoing drought and August polls forces Central bank to readjust Kenya's economic growth
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Construction projects in Africa that had broken ground by 1 June 2016 and are valued at Sh5 billion or higher stood at 286 in 2016 compared to 301 recorded in the previous year.
As a region, West Africa had the most number of projects with 92 projects and also the most in terms of value at US$120bn. However, South Africa was the single country with the largest number of projects (41) followed by Nigeria (38).
Similar to last year, the greatest number of projects fall into the Transport sector (33.6%), followed by Real Estate (22.4%), Energy & Power (21%) and Shipping & Ports (8.4%). Not surprisingly, the share of Mining projects more than halved to 2.8% while Oil & Gas decreased to 4.5%.
Worryingly despite Africa facing back to back droughts there remains very little large-scale investment in the Water sector (1.3% of total investment) and even less in Healthcare (0.3%), Education (0.1%) and Social Development (0.1%).
Ethiopia’s ongoing projects include the $5 billion Grand Renaissance Dam, which when completed is expected to generate 6,000 megawatts, which is expected to earn the country $1 billion annually from electricity sales, including exports.
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The Horn of Africa nation also recently commissioned a railway linking its capital Addis Ababa to the Red Sea port city of Djibouti at a cost of $3.4bn.
However Kenya has an edge over Ethiopia with investors preferring to do business with the former.
Kenya runs a comparatively more open economy, unlike Ethiopia, which has closed most sectors of its economy to foreign investors.
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