Gabon’s president Ali Bongo Ondimba has
ambitious plans to develop the country’s infrastructure and has drafted
in engineering firm Bechtel to help. Katie Coyne reports.
President
Ali Bongo Ondimba wants to bring Gabon country into the 21st century
and for it to become a hub for the surrounding West African countries,”
says Bechtel’s project director for Gabon Jim Dutton. “The president is
seen as a leader in driving Africa forward.”
Ondimba - who came to
power in 2009 - has charged Bechtel with drawing up the country’s first
ever master plan for the country’s infrastructure.
Wide in scope
it covers the infrastructure needed in the main economic areas of
education, health, housing, neighbourhood development, utilities,
transport, energy and tourism.
The master plan is part of
Ondimba’s broader aim to transform the country with his “Gabon Emergent”
plan to boost the economy and ensure lasting growth. The masterplan
will be based on an economic strategy with three main pillars: industry,
environment and services.
The former French colony is in central west Africa
bordering the Atlantic Ocean and located between the Republic of Congo
and Equatorial Guinea. It has a per capita income roughly four times
that of most nations of sub-Saharan Africa. “It’s very well resourced as
a country but its income is extremely poorly distributed,” says Dutton.
According to the World Bank, the Gabonese per capita GDP stood at
£15,183.47 in 2010. But there is a huge divide between the poorest and
richest in society.
Gabon boasts the world’s largest unexploited
iron ore reserves plus reserves of manganese and niobium. Oil is its
biggest export - roughly about half of GDP - but output has passed its
peak so the president wants to diversify away from it.
The country
is also a big exporter of timber. The government’s decision to ban the
export of untreated wood and raw timber from 2010 has helped encourage
the development of a local timber finishing industry, creating more
jobs.
“Bechtel got involved with the African Cup of Nations because the stadiums being worked on were not progressing fast enough”
That
same year, Ondimba invited Bechtel to develop Gabon’s infrastructure
masterplan to help further stimulate the country’s economy. Bechtel was
on the government’s radar simply because it had previously carried out
some economic studies for the previous administration.
But just a
few months later the firm got handed an opportunity that could prove to
be a poisoned chalice or a chance to build a great reputation for itself
among the Gabonese. It was asked to help out with the organisation of
the 28th Africa Cup of Nations football tournament.
“Bechtel got
involved because the stadiums being worked on were not progressing fast
enough, so we were asked to take on the management of stadium and
associated infrastructure,” says Dutton.
“Delivering on time was critical and a test of our capabilities and politics.”
Bechtel soon found itself stretched and involved in all sorts of unexpected areas, but it had to pull it off.
“Because
our name became associated with delivering on the CAN [Coupe d’Afrique
des Nations] we sort of became responsible for lots of things that
weren’t our responsibility such as ticketing and security. We had to get
involved in these things.”
But success has paid off for Bechtel,
by improving its standing within the country, and for Gabon by improving
its standing within Africa.
“They’ve proved they can run an
international sporting event - it was the best, it raised the bar,” says
Dutton enthusiastically. “That’s not to say there weren’t glitches but
these were dealt with.” This gave Bechtel enormous goodwill to deliver
the infrastructure masterplan, which it has just delivered to the
government.
But
what is the country like to work in? Around 40% of the Gabonese
population lives in the capital city of Libreville in the north west.
“Essentially it’s a coastal town with pains au chocolat and good coffee
and very expensive restaurants to rival London prices,” says Dutton.
“But drive east of the coast for five minutes and there are people living on a dollar a day.”
Asked
about corruption and red tape, Dutton says his company has been invited
in by the government it doesn’t have a problem with bureaucracy.
“If Bechtel was to have a strap line it would be safety and ethical standards in the way it does business,” he says.
Not
to miss a chance to enthuse about the country itself, Dutton adds:
“Even the most cynical recognise that there has been a complete change
in Gabon.”
He adds that the country is also pretty secure despite
the huge divide between rich and poor. “It’s surprising how safe it is -
if you wandered down a back street and got in the wrong cab you might
get your wallet nicked,” says Dutton. But then, he adds, “I used to live
in Battersea and petty theft can happen anywhere.”
Drawing up a
masterplan is all well and good but the country needs an organisation to
oversee and plan infrastructure well into the future. Hand in hand with
drawing up a master plan, Bechtel has helped establish the National
Agency of Major Works - a government agency to manage new infrastructure
projects.
The idea was for the agency to be made up of a mix of
expat westerners and Gabonese but currently 125 out of 180 total
employees are Bechtel secondees.
Dutton explains that due to the
shortage of university places in the country there is a lack of
qualified Gabonese engineers. Although, says Dutton, those Gabonese
coming to work for the agency are of a “high quality” - some with
degrees from French or American universities - and they are usually
bilingual. Going forward, the plan is to recruit more Gabonese.
“The Transgabonais is a mixed use single line taking manganese and passengers”
One
essential area that the agency will be looking at is roads. The
masterplan has identified development corridors crossing highly
populated areas close to natural resources that have the potential for
industrial development.
Developing these is seen as a priority under plans to grow the Gabonese economy.
“Most of the country is jungle so communications are along roads which are in very poor condition,” says Dutton.
The country’s only rail link, the Transgabonais, connects Libreville to Franceville in the South East.
“But,”
says Dutton, “you wouldn’t want to use it. It’s a mixed use, single
line taking manganese and passengers. It can take up to 16 hours to do
the 400km.”
The plan is to upgrade and double the capacity of the
Transgabonais, and introduce two new lines. The first will link Belinga,
in the north where the country’s iron ore deposits are situated and
where a mine is being developed, and Booue further north. The
Transgabonais road corridor from Libreville to Franceville needs
completion and a number of improvements are planned over the next four
years.
Another priority is the development of a deep water port.
This would help the president realise his aims of having Gabon serve as a
trade hub for surrounding countries.
There is an existing port
facility at Port-Gentil that could be developed, and the area could be
designated a free trade zone to encourage business.
But
Port-Gentil is connected to the mainland by swamp so a road is needed to
link it to Nkok, about 20km east of Libreville and where the Gabon
Special Economic Zone (an industrial park to encourage the development
of the timber processing industry) is based, linking it to Lambarene
further south.
Other priorities include reducing congestion at the Libreville airport and producing a study for a new airport in the capital.
Housing
is also a priority. Since May last year, Bechtel has been working with
the government to develop a mixed use housing project in the Angondje
zone in Libreville, next to the central football stadium. Some houses
have already been built and 5,000 will be constructed in total.
The development has been designed in grids so that residents can be close to transport, schools and shops.
As
a significant aside, Dutton adds that Bechtel’s involvement in this and
the football tournament project has been instrumental in raising safety
standards. “People used to wander round construction sites wearing flip
flops or bare feet - wearing a helmet and high vis - but not the one
piece of safety equipment that was most crucial,” says Dutton.
Another
key area of concern is education. “There is a shortage of classrooms,
and schools tend to run from seven in the morning to one and then run a
second shift from one to seven like a lot of African countries - to
double up because of the lack of capacity,” says Dutton.
“Sometimes
they don’t have indoor toilets and in some cases no toilets.” Bechtel
is collating all the studies previously carried out into education to
come up with a coherent plan to improve facilities.
More
immediately there is a plan to double the number of students at the
main university in Libreville and expand the intake at some of the other
universities. This should improve the number of engineering graduates
coming through to work at the new infrastructure agency.
The company has been constructing quick build classrooms and toilet blocks to increase university capacity.
Two
prestigious projects currently under development are the City of
Democracy - a series of government buildings outside Libreville - and
the refurbishment of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene.
Founded
by Nobel Peace prize winner, Schweitzer, in 1913, the hospital is a
world leader in the fight against malaria. But the building needs
refurbishment.
“It’s now a very tired hospital so there’s a lot of
work associated with it. It needs a road to connect it to Libreville
and the work needs to be done in the style of the surrounding
buildings,” says Dutton.
This work must be done before the
hospital’s one hundred year anniversary celebrations next year. And with
the African Union Summit being hosted in Libreville in 2014, the City
of Democracy redevelopment also needs to be done and dusted.
The
outlook looks pretty bright for Gabon, and Dutton argues that in the
future no one should be surprised to see the West African country on a
tourist hot list of top places to visit.
