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China’s investment helps Africa
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WHEN Mary Kabasa suffered two days of diarrhea about two weeks ago, she suspected cholera.
The 36-year-old lives in one of Zimbabwean capital’s impoverished suburbs, Budiriro, the hardest-hit area of a cholera epidemic that killed 4,000 people in 2008. Authorities blame unreliable water supply and failed sewage treatment for the staggering toll. Five years on, things have improved, but not too much.
“Our tap water is still unclean and, when we boil it to kill germs, it turns green,” said Kabasa. Harare’s water woes have been exasperating over the past decade, largely because the authorities can’t keep up with maintenance amid an economic meltdown.
This year, a Chinese company has brought some hope. In October, China Machinery Engineering Corp started a three-year project to overhaul Harare’s Morton Jaffray water plant and sewage treatment facilities, financed by a US$144 million loan from China Import and Export Bank.
The water rehabilitation project is so important that Zimbabwe’s veteran President Robert Mugabe mentioned the project and the Chinese team behind it when he inaugurated the new parliament in September after his ruling Zanu-PF party won elections.
Project manager Cao Yang said he would work hard to ensure the Zimbabwean people were not let down. “People can live without electricity, but not water,” said Cao. He defended Chinese engagement in Africa, which some critics claim enrich crooked officials while extending the sufferings of the poor.
“Projects like this do not benefit the president or prime minister. Instead, it is hundreds of thousands of the poor who reap the benefits,” Cao said. He cited the official estimate that after the water system renovation, nearly a million urban poor in Harare’s impoverished suburbs like Budiriro will have access to clean water.
Cao said CMEC approached Harare City Council over the water projects in 2006, when Zimbabwe’s other partners, such as India, South Korea and the World Bank, were also interested in the projects.
“But they can’t compete with us,” Cao said. “My philosophy is ‘go big or go home’.” The rehabilitation, which aims to repair 90 percent of the ground facilities, is the largest in the 50 years since the European-built Morton Jaffray plant became operational in 1965.
China’s engagement with Africa started as early as in the 1960s, when the first African states broke free from colonialism. At first, the engagement was guided largely by ideological alliances, but, as China’s economy has taken off in recent decades, Beijing has emerged as one of Africa’s most important development partners.
To be continued tomorrow.
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