"If You Build It, They Will Come": The Folly of An Infrastructure-Based Development Agenda

Complain about the lack of jobs in Ghana these days and an NDC official is likely to respond with something along the lines of “We have completed an unprecedented numberof infrastructure projects, and the jobs will come”. For the NDC government, infrastructure projects have become a substitute for prudent economic policies that ensure that businessesflourish.

To them, all that matters is to borrow money, build something with the promise that it will lead to economic development andmagically,that will come to pass. This reminds me of the 1998 movie, “Field of Dreams”. The lead character in this movie setsout to builda baseball field on his farmreassured in therightness of theventure by avoicetellinghim “If you build it, they will come”. As movies arewont to unfold, after a few twists and turns, people (dead baseball players, that is)showed up to play on the field.

Unfortunately,dead people neveractually come back to life and there are too many examples of governments and businesses wastinghuge sums of money on infrastructure projects in the mistaken belief that once the facility was built, it would be used. Some commonly known examplesare the $1bnRussky Bridge in Russia that connects Vladivostok to Russky Island which has a population of 5,000 (a classic example of a bridge to nowhere); the 3,000-room Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea, a country that gets virtually no visitors; andthe New South China Mall in Dongguan, China which as the world's largest mall, expected 100,000 visitor but has remained mostly empty since itsconstruction in 2005. Given the current Ghanaian context where there seemsto be a zeal to build “international” airports, perhaps the Montreal-Mirabel Internationaland Ciudad Real Central Airports are the two projects from which we should learn a few lessons.

In the late 60s, both the federal and Quebec provincial governments agreed to build a new international airport at a site about 40km from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Montreal already had the Dorval (now Pierre E. Trudeau) International Airport. The politicians justified the need for the new airport with the claim that by the mid-80s, about 20 million passengers would be flying through Montreal yearly. This was far in excess of Dorval's capacity. The plan was therefore to have about 16 million of the anticipated passengers use Montreal-Mirabel and the remaining use Dorval. The new airport was opened in 1975 and all international flights except those between Canada and the USA were required to use it.

Sadly, this meant those transferring between domestic and international flights had to travel by bus between the two; a one-hour trip they found inconvenient. To satisfy their customers, airlines gradually chose to fly transferring passengers to other airports. This was made easier by the introduction in the 80s of long range aircraft that did not have to refuel in Montréal before crossing the Atlantic to Europe. By the early 90s, both airports were handling only about 8 million passengers. In 1997, a decision was made to consolidate passenger travel at Dorval and by 2004, no commercial flights used Montreal-Mirabel.

For those of you free market capitalist thinking that the private sector would have done a better job, hold that thought. The Ciudad Real Central Airport which cost €1.1bn to build was the first privately owned international airport in Spain. The airport had a planned capacity of 10 million passengers and 47,000 tonnes of cargo a year and a runway long enough to accommodate an Airbus 380. The airport opened in 2009 with just a few airlines having signed up to use it. By 2010, only a couple of flights a day with less than a hundred passengers were operating out of the airport. In April 2012, the airport was closed after operating for only three years. A few months ago, it was sold for less than €56M; a great loss to the investors who thought if they built it, the airlines would come.

On 19^thAugust, the refurbished Tamale International Airport (TML) was inaugurated with the airlifting of a group of Hajj pilgrims providing the perfect backdrop for politiciansand civil servantsto indulge in an orgy of self-congratulations. As I listened to the President, the Managing Director of the Ghana Airport Company Limited (GACL), and theManager of the airport talk about all the economic development this airport was going to bring not only to the city, but also to the country and the sub-region, I was left with the impression that they may have watched the “Field of Dreams” too many times.

How else can one explain the claims made by these men leading the current craze to build new airports and extend existing runways. In exalting the wisdom of the runway expansion project, theymade claims ranging from the contrived,the ability to fly pilgrims directly to Saudi Arabia; to the illogical, the need fora “second international airport to help officials deal with any emergency at Kotoka International Airport (KIA)”.Why will you select Tamale as an alternativelanding sitefor an aircraft in distress when Kumasi and other locationsare closer?

Commenting on theHajj flight, the airport manager stated that “transporting pilgrims (directly) from Tamale is better than people travelling about 10 hours to Accra and staying there for weeks at a high cost”. He therefore commended the government for taking the initiative to make this possible. Who can disagree when the issues are presented in this manner? I willcertainly not choose a 10-hour ride on the bad roadsfrom Tamale to Accra followed by days in a makeshift camp in Accra. However, that has not been the only choice available to pilgrims. The option to airlift people to Saudi Arabia from Tamale directly orvia Accra, has always been available and it has been done in the past. The fact that it has not been done in the last thirtyor so yearshas been due to the incompetence and greed of those responsible for organizingthe annual pilgrimage.

In fairness, while the Hajj pilgrimsserved as a good propaganda tool, their convenience was not the main reason for the extension of the runway. The project as we have been led to believe would create opportunities for accelerated growth of the North through, thedevelopment of an “aerotropolis with a one stop shop for hotels, conferencing facilities, shops and restaurants”, creation of a maintenance and servicing centre for aircraft across West Africa; and its use as a cargo handling facility “so that fresh fruits and vegetables as well as other agricultural products can be exported directly from Tamale to Europe instead of being carted to Accra”.

In order for the country to realize these economic benefits, foreign airlines operating wide-body aircraft must be willing to use TML as adestination.You do not need to be a genius to surmise thatthis will not happen. More so when KIAis being upgraded to handle 5 million passengersa year; this is double the number of passengers whotravelled through our airports in 2014. Airlines will find it more convenient and economical to operate out of the bigger and better resourced airport. Also, can anyone think of afresh fruit orvegetable produced in thenorthern part of the country that cannot withstand an additional one ortwo-hour flight to KIA on its way to its internationaldestination?

Even if foreign carriers were interested in operating out of TML, there are parochial reasons for the government not to permit that. Currently, travellers transferring between domestic and international flights have to use a domestic airline to get to or from KIA. Permitting international flights at airports other KIA will take business away fromthese domestic operators. As a country, we should be implementing policies thatprotect the market share of domestic operators.

Let us recall that the TML project is part of an overall government policy to upgrade existing airports and also to havean airport in everyregion. Sadly, you would be hard-pressed to locate a government reportdetailing a data supported economic justification for this policy. The President in his speech on 19^thAugust alluded to theprojectbeingthe fulfilment of a promise made in 2008 by the late President Atta-Mills to turn Tamale into an international airport.

If all we wanted was to have an international airport thenwe could have done it for less money;the expansion of the runway was needless. The fact is, the length of arunway has no bearing on an airport’s “international” status/designation. All that is neededis the availability of customs and immigration officers at the airport to process international travellers. Longer runways are only required if you want to accommodate wide-body aircraft often used on transcontinental flights. I remain to be convinced that we are going to see enough wide-body aircraft at TML to justify this investment.

It is not too late for the government to learn some lessons from failed airport projects around the world and from its own handling of the “dumsor” crisis. Decisions made in an attempt to resolve the “dumsor” problem have provided this country with more electricity generation capacity than we needwhile the more critical issue of fuel supplyreliability remains unresolved.

As a country, we are often too quick to adopt solutionswithout firstidentifying the actual problem that must be solved, identifying the options that will address the problem, assessinghow well each option meets our requirements and selectingthe best option for implementation. This has to change! The next government would do the country a great favour if it follows the example of the British government and set up a Government Operational Research Service. This entity should be staffed with scientist, economist, engineers, mathematicians, etc., trained in the field of operational research and tasked to provide all government departments and agencies with analytical evidence to support decision making. One can only hope that the politicians will then make decisions based on the advice of their own analysts.

Yaw Asiedu
Regina, Saskatchewan
Canada