South Sudan settle on 16 priority LAPSET projects
South Sudan completed its strategic plan for the implementation of the Lamu Port-South Sudan and Ethiopia Transport Corridor Project.
Ssenior advisor of the Africa Trade Center to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Adeyinka Adeyemi, said the consultant UNECA hired to help the government met with ministers and came with the 16 priority projects for South Sudan.
“These are all in the context of the LAPSSET project,” Adeyemi said.
The 16 projects include a fiber-optic national broadband backbone, a fiber-optic cable connecting from the Atlantic Ocean, road networks, the design and construction of the LAPSSET Corridor Road, the Beden Hydroelectric Dam and Power Project, regional power grid interconnectivity, water and electricity supplies to main cities and towns along the Corridor, and other interconnections, as well as the completion of the energy master plan.
Others include agriculture and irrigation programmes, national petroleum and minerals survey, manufacturing and value addition, transport and logistics programmes, oil and gas, mining of minerals and strategic environmental safeguard studies.
The UN expert said they have agreed on roads, power and agriculture as the first three priority projects to be implemented for South Sudan in case funders such as the World Bank express interest in supporting the government in implementing the projects under LAPSSET.
“We will support the government of South Sudan as part of the United Nations system as it is implementing its national strategy on AfCFTA so that it can increase trade and interlink ages and all the benefits of security, youth employment can be enjoyed by South Sudan,” he said.
Adeyemi stated that the job of UNECA is to convene powers by calling people and informing them of nations that are serious about development but have some challenges with a lot of opportunities and discussing them, adding that politicians are able to remove any impediment that is impeding development.
LAPSSET is implemented by Kenya, South Sudan, and Ethiopia, connecting the east African coast to the West African coast from the port of Lamu in Kenya.
The LAPSSET corridor connects the East and West African continents, connecting Kenya with South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Douala, and Lagos port, among others, in the west.
Lamu Port’s first three berths are operational, and roads connecting the port to the south are under construction, including Lamu-Garissa-Isiolo and Lokichar-Lokichar, according to Silvestre Kasuku, a consultant with UNECA and the former Executive Chief Officer of Kenya LAPSSET Development Authority.
The 500-kilometre road from Isiolo to Moyale, as well as the 500-kilometer road from Moyale to Hawasa, has been completed, he said.
“So we are having road networks connecting partner states to Lamu port,” said Kasuku.
Kasuku said the government of Ethiopia upgraded the road from Hawassa in Ethiopia to Addis Ababa into a motor way to ease the movement of traffic noting, “We expect cargo traffic as well as other small vehicles that are partaking in the business of the corridor”.
Boosting the production
Agro-processing industrial zones have been established along the LAPSSET corridor, led by the government of Ethiopia, in the southern part of Ethiopia, such as sugar industrial investment.
Mining concessions are looking to export materials from Ethiopia through the port of Lamu, which the team visited to see how they could put up their structure for loading the materials into major shapes.
Ethiopia has stepped up its institutional framework for connecting Kenya and South Sudan, while Lamu Port is fully energized by Kenya, according to the consultant.
“Power generation is already running along the corridor with the latest addition of 300 megawatts of wind power that is coming from Trukana across the border. The fiber optic cable has already reached the border with South Sudan and runs along the corridor,” he said.
“The design for the crude oil pipeline has already been completed from Lokichar oil field to Lamu port. The design for the railway engineering preliminary design is already completed,” he added.
