RAM~MI~RAN
13-Feb-07, 19:45
South Sudan sees progress after war
Tuesday 13 February 2007
jubba, South Sudan (smc)
Electricity pylons and new roads are springing up in Juba in a sign to starting of rehabilitation .
Juba town had electricity only during daylight hours, little running water, and only a few pot-holed stretches of Tarmac road. But two years after Signing the comprehensive peace agreement between the government and SPLM in Kenya on January 9,2005 ended Africa’s longest-running civil war, all that is changing. — although critics say the pace of development is far too slow. “I expect in a few months we will have electricity everywhere,†said Magdi Abbas, the manager of Sudan’s Air West commercial airline in Juba. “There are new roads being built, increasing trade.â€
Hotels and tent camps have sprung up in Juba to house foreign aid workers, businessmen and government employees who have poured into the town since the end of the Giant bulldozers have flattened a stretch of land to build a Tarmac road from the airport to newly renovated government ministries. Rusted electricity wires, broken and lying in the dust, are being replaced with new pylons.
Trader Mohamed Awad, said private enterprise had rapidly escalated since the war’s end. “But you’d have expected more progress after two years in simple things like electricity, water, health issues and roads,†said Awad, a 50-year-old northerner who has spent his whole life in Juba and is married to a southern Sudanese woman.
Hadi Diab, a member of the SPLM investment committee, said the south was trying to draw longer-term foreign investment with attractive incentives such as tax and customs exemptions and lucrative joint ventures.
Diab said investors were beginning to understand that money could be made in south Sudan.
“Until now we have foreign investment approaching about $130.3m,†he said. Investments are focusing on construction, likely to be the most profitable industry in a land where few buildings exist. A pre-cast concrete factory is to be built on the outskirts of Juba and South Africans are financing a glass office tower being erected in the town centre, Diab said.
Tuesday 13 February 2007
jubba, South Sudan (smc)
Electricity pylons and new roads are springing up in Juba in a sign to starting of rehabilitation .
Juba town had electricity only during daylight hours, little running water, and only a few pot-holed stretches of Tarmac road. But two years after Signing the comprehensive peace agreement between the government and SPLM in Kenya on January 9,2005 ended Africa’s longest-running civil war, all that is changing. — although critics say the pace of development is far too slow. “I expect in a few months we will have electricity everywhere,†said Magdi Abbas, the manager of Sudan’s Air West commercial airline in Juba. “There are new roads being built, increasing trade.â€
Hotels and tent camps have sprung up in Juba to house foreign aid workers, businessmen and government employees who have poured into the town since the end of the Giant bulldozers have flattened a stretch of land to build a Tarmac road from the airport to newly renovated government ministries. Rusted electricity wires, broken and lying in the dust, are being replaced with new pylons.
Trader Mohamed Awad, said private enterprise had rapidly escalated since the war’s end. “But you’d have expected more progress after two years in simple things like electricity, water, health issues and roads,†said Awad, a 50-year-old northerner who has spent his whole life in Juba and is married to a southern Sudanese woman.
Hadi Diab, a member of the SPLM investment committee, said the south was trying to draw longer-term foreign investment with attractive incentives such as tax and customs exemptions and lucrative joint ventures.
Diab said investors were beginning to understand that money could be made in south Sudan.
“Until now we have foreign investment approaching about $130.3m,†he said. Investments are focusing on construction, likely to be the most profitable industry in a land where few buildings exist. A pre-cast concrete factory is to be built on the outskirts of Juba and South Africans are financing a glass office tower being erected in the town centre, Diab said.