# **5.2 Kinshasa-Brazzaville: Unblocking the Bottleneck**

**The proposed construction of a road-and-rail bridge between Brazzaville and Kinshasa is fraught with political difficulties.** A bridge, combined with an upgrade of the Pointe NoireBrazzaville corridor and, possibly, of the road and/or rail link between Kinshasa and Ilebo, has an estimated internal rate of return of 16 percent for the DRC and of 3 percent for the RC (World Bank, 2010a). It would offer the lowest-cost transport between the two capitals in a physical sense, granting Kinshasa and its hinterland improved access to the existing and expandable deep-water port of Pointe Noire, potentially obviating a large share of the current transshipments from Pointe Noire to Matadi. However, even though the economic gains would seem to be larger for the DRC, the intra-national distribution of gainers and losers is such that enthusiasm for the bridge is in fact strong in the RC but limited in the DRC. The main appeal from the vantage point of RC authorities is increased utilization of their transport infrastructure (port, rail, road) and the attendant scope for revenue collection. Conversely, the main source of hesitation on the DRC side is strong opposition from the political elite in the Bas-Congo region, which fears the loss of its current status as the nation’s main access point for merchandise trade and the loss of revenues and jobs related to port handling, transit fees on road infrastructure, and substantial losses in terms of unofficial payments.

**Given the large cost and uncertain prospects associated with the bridge project, less costly and more rapidly implementable solutions to unblocking the Kinshasa-Brazzaville bottleneck need to be identified.**<sup>30</sup> The World Bank (2010a) has identified the Kinshasa-Brazzaville bridge as the potentially most beneficial infrastructure investment in terms of its impact on local production. However, as other studies have shown (Teravaninthorn and Raballand, 2009), dilapidated infrastructure may be the visible face of high trade costs in Africa, but uncompetitive transport markets often pose even more severe obstacles to the free movement of goods and people and high administrative costs would have to be reduced to allow the full benefits of improved infrastructure to materialize.<sup>31</sup> While some forms of transport infrastructure (roads, dredged waterways, navigation marks, ports) have public good character and therefore justify some degree of public investment and monitoring, there is no reason why shipping services cannot be left to private providers. In principle, the state would need to play only a minimal role, by regulating traffic, monitoring safety and protecting property rights.

**Travel and transport across Malebo Pool could be facilitated through a range of mainly regulatory measures.** If implemented effectively, such measures could generate similar benefits to those of a bridge, at a fraction of the cost. To the extent that such measures reduce administrative barriers to cross-border trade, they would of course also have to accompany any investment in a bridge across the river. In fact, facilitating the activities of local transport entrepreneurs across Malebo Pool could well pay higher economic rewards than the construction of a bridge, since most of the work on a bridge would likely have to be carried out by foreign contractors, whereas waterborne transport services can well be supplied by local operators.

**Unblocking the Malebo bottleneck with a combination of regulatory changes and some capital investment could yield significant economic gains for both countries, have symbolic value as a gesture of political good will, and represent a test case for trade reform.** Since many regional

> 30 According to Keefer (2010), the fragmentation of DRC elites makes it very difficult to undertake and maintain large infrastructure projects: “The failure to construct the Kinshasa Brazzaville bridge is only one example of a critical infrastructure project that has large benefits for citizens generally, but is opposed by a few for either nationalistic or commercial reasons.”

> 31 Of the estimated total freight cost of USD 40 per ton to cross Malebo Pool, USD 26 relate to border delay costs, which a bridge would not necessarily to reduce. Addressing these costs alone (even without building a bridge), could bring down transport costs between the two cities by 63%.

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