Rail link in Ethiopia contrasts proactive China with languid India

NEW DELHI - On the rooftop of Africa, the development of Ethiopia’s rail network is demonstrating the different working models of India and China - as both of them are scrambling to get lucrative contracts in the continent.

As India waited for Ethiopia to come with a specific request for help, the Chinese moved in quickly and offered cash upfront for a crucial but decrepit rail link from landlocked Ethiopia to neighbouring Djibouti’s sea port.

“The Chinese can go to any country and offer money for a project. We don’t. Our system is request-based where we only go for a project after a specific proposal is made by a country,” said a senior government official, speaking on condition of complete anonymity as he was not supposed to speak to the media.

With no access to the sea, Ethiopia has been planning to lay down 5,000 metres of track within the country as well as to develop the 100-year-old imperial rail link to the port of Djibouti.

The metre-gauge rail link requires urgent upgradation, with several derailments reported every month. Many bridges along the routes were also decrepit, while several part of the rail had steep inclines in the highlands of Ethiopia, officials said.

India first come into the picture in 2006, when a state-run consultancy, RITES - earlier called the Rail India Technical and Economic Services - bid for the rehabilitation project of the Ethiopia-Djibouti line with a length of 781 kilometres.

The EU even gave a grant of 50 million euros in 2006 for the projec. “But RITES lost out to Comazar from South Africa. We gave the correct picture that it would require a lot of work and money and time,” said a senior Indian government official.

The South African got the concession, but within a few months it was abandoned. In the second half of 2006, a consortium led by an Italian firm got the contract, but in two years, the Ethiopian government felt the pace and quality of work was inadequate.

As Djibouti got a new port and an oil terminal, it became all the more attractive for booming Ethiopia - home to many multilateral agencies such as the African Union - to connect with the neighbouring country, located strategically on the horn of Africa.

“In the current system, it takes four-five days for goods to travel between Djibouti and Ethiopia. This is quite untenable for powering the country’s economic growth,” said the Indian official.

With the railway development plan not getting off the ground, both countries had again informally approached Indian officials for assistance in developing the imperial route, which has an “emotional resonance” for Ethiopia.

“They said that their first preference was the Indian model. So we asked them to submit a formal proposal to us, which would be the basis to go forard,” said the official.

But in 2008-09, the Indian embassy in Addis Ababa had no ambassador for six months. “So the Chinese marched in their typical proactive mode and offered to give soft loan for the development of the Ethiopia-Djibouti rail link,” the official said.

“They hemmed and hawed. At one time, they even suggested that the southern railway links were more suitable for investment but the Chinese insisted on the Ethiopia-Djibouti rail link,” said another senior official here.

This January, then Indian minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor visited Ethiopia, and the country’s Prime Minister Meles Zanawi apprised him of the status of the rail link.

“He told the Indian side that since the rail project did not go forward with New Delhi, they were going with the Chinese who are ready,” the Indian official said.

Nevertheless, India was instead offered a new independent rail route between Ethiopia and Djibouti that is under discussion between the two African neighbours. But even that was six months ago and India once again appears languid and far from being proactive.

“We are still awaiting the technical proposal from Ethopia.”

(Devirupa Mitra can be contacted at devirupa.m@ians.in)