INFRASTRUCTURE STATISTICS
INFRASTRUCTURE is a set of basic facilities and services which facilitate different economic activities and thereby help in economic development of the country.
For example, roads, buildings, transport, power supplies are needed for the smooth operation of a society. These facilities do not directly produce goods and services but induce production in different sectors of the economy (Mehta, n.d.). Infrastructure is the basic requirement of economic development. The level of economic development in any country directly depends on the development of infrastructure. It is, therefore, important for a country to have accurate update infrastructure statistics for rational decision-making. This articles aims at illustrating use of statistics in infrastructure development and utilisation using a sample of economic and social infrastructure.
Institutional Arrangement for Infrastructure Development
Infrastructure development cuts across all ministries in Zambia. According to the Gazette Notice No. 836 of 2016, dated 18th November 2016 on the Statutory Functions, Portfolios and Composition of Government, subjects allocated to the Ministry of Housing and Infrastructure Development include: Aviation infrastructure, Education infrastructure, Health infrastructure, Maritime infrastructure, Railway infrastructure and Road infrastructure. This implies that this Ministry is best positioned to deal with infrastructure statistics but with technical support from the Central Statistical Office (CSO), which has the statistical technical expertise.
Infrastructure Categories
Infrastructure can be divided into two i.e. economic infrastructure and social infrastructure. Economic infrastructure are basic facilities and services which directly benefit the process of production and distribution of an economy. Examples of economic infrastructure are communication, transport, power etc. and social infrastructure include health, water supply and sanitation, housing, education etc. Social infrastructure means those basic activities and services which, in addition to achieving certain social objectives, indirectly help various economic activities. For example, education does not directly affect economic activities like production and distribution but indirectly helps in the economic development of the country by producing skilled human capital. Therefore, education, health service, sanitation and water supply etc. are the examples of social infrastructure.
Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP)
In order to enhance the supply of electricity for economic development, infrastructure development will be promoted. The 7NDP has targeted development of infrastructure but in particular enhancement of generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, development of small and mini/micro hydro power stations. Other development out- comes in the 7NDP is improved transport systems and infrastructure. Zambia’s transport sector constitutes mainly four modes, namely roads, railways, aviation and maritime. For the purposes of monitoring and evaluation of the transport system, use of statistics is required. A well-functioning transport system has the potential to reduce the overall cost of doing business in the country, thereby contributing to the attainment of a diversified and resilient economy for sustained growth and socioeconomic transformation. An improved transport system and infrastructure will enable efficiency in the movement of goods and people within the country. Statistics on the movement of goods and people need to be obtained and appropriately used.
Health Infrastructure
In order to illustrate Health infrastructure and relevant statististics tics, the 2017 and 2018 Budget speeches by the Honourable Minister of Finance are used. In the two speeches, infrastructure development has been a key focus. It is stated that in 2017 Budget, completion of 350 health posts that had remained was included. The Minister further stated that work would continue on construction of 35 district hospitals. Levy Mwanawasa Hospital was also planned to be upgraded from 120 to 850 bed spaces. Government reported that it had completed the construction of a modern 252-bed capacity Cancer Diseases Hospital in June 2016. A total of 275 health posts were completed and were operational. Further, Matero and Chilenje clinics were upgraded to first level hospitals while 35 district hospitals were at various stages of construction. In order to increase access to health services, Government has planned to continue constructing and upgrading health facilities across the country. This is part of health infrastructure. It has to be noted that building good health infrastructure does not necessarily produce health outcomes. This is mainly dependent on a number of variables such as operational efficiency, implementation, maintenance of health infrastructure, and the efficient utilisation of the available infrastructure. A health infrastructure index can be developed by making use of health inputs such as number of hospitals and dispensaries, number of doctors and number of beds in hospitals.
Transport Infrastructure
There are a number areas in transport infrastructure that require use of statistics. For example, there are a number of measures of the construction of transport infrastructure as well as measures of the length of roads available for public use and road construction price indexes. Freight transport demands statistics on the movement of physical items between locations such Nakonde to Lusaka. Freight statistics can be classified by mode of transport i.e. road, rail, or air. Freight is further classified into bulk and non-bulk segments. Two measures of freight transport can be provided such as the weight of freight moved in the country, measured in millions of tonnes and freight by weight and distance moved. This is measured in tonne kilometres, the transport task performed in moving one tonne of freight one kilometre. A summary of passenger statistics, classified by mode of transport are very useful in managing transport system. Two statistical measures of passenger transport i.e. the number of people transported and the number of passenger kilometres travelled i.e. a measure of the transport task performed in moving one passenger one kilometre.
The Government of Zambia has embarked on the Link Zambia 8,000 project as part of road infrastructure development. This priority government project visualises building 8,000 km which is equivalent to 5000 miles of high quality single and dual lane roads throughout the country. The aim is to construct an efficient road network and international highways linking Zambia to other countries such as, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Namibia. It is envisaged that this project will contribute to the reduction of road user costs and transit times across Zambia. Government proposes that Private sector consider undertaking a large portion of Link Zambia 8000 Road Project.
In order to monitor and trace the developments and policies in the transport sector, it is import to analyse a range of transport statistics. These statistics help to describe the most important key features of transport. They include not only the quantities of freight and numbers of passengers that are moved each month or year, or the number of vehicles and infrastructure that are used. Further statistics are computed on the contribution of transport services to the economy as a whole.
Energy
A number of measures of energy infrastructure construction are can be obtained such as electricity networks, capacity of electricity generation plants and reliability of electricity supply. Statistics can be obtained on energy production in Zambia of all main primary fuels and also energy imports and exports. In terms of electricity, detailed usage statistics are provided by number of customers and electricity prices for residential and industry consumers in each area. For petroleum fuels, detailed usage statistics are provided as well as time series sta- for a range of international crude oil prices. This activity is ably done by the Energy Regulation Board (ERB). The energy infrastructure statistics that are provided by ERB are very useful to Government and other stakeholders. I am always impressed with the comprehensive energy statistics that ERB produces. According to the ERB’s January to June 2017 Statistical Bulletin, the total national installed electricity capacity as at 30th June 2017 stood at 2,885.91MW. This comprised 2,392.3 MW (82.9%) of hydro generation, 300 MW (10.4%) of Coal; 88.6 MW (3.1%) of Diesel, 105 MW (3.6%) of Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and 0.06 MW (0.002%) of Solar. The bulletin further elaborates that the refined petroleum products in the country are transported mainly via road except for isolated cases, where rail is used. A total of 193,187 m3 of petrol and 298,057 m3 of diesel were uplifted from Government depots during the period January to June 2017.
Infrastructure Index and Infrastructure Utilisation Index
Infrastructure Index is intended to measure the change of the performance infrastructure over time. The Infrastructure Index must be developed using a rigorous, repeatable process anchored in existing data. The Index is weighted to recognise the interconnections among the different infrastructure networks. One of the main goals of creating an Infrastructure Index is to register changes in the performance conditions of infrastructure over time to determine if there are positive or negative changes.
Quantification of the infrastructural activities in the form of an index is very useful for policy making. The construction of “Infrastructure Index” provides a measure of the growth of infrastructure, the second one, namely, “Infrastructure Utilisation Index”, indicates the extent of utilisation of identified infrastructure facilities. These are very important in terms of how the infrastructure is made use of. This can be school or health infrastructure, roads, bridges railway, aviation etc. Useful statistics can be obtained on the number of buses that commute between Lusaka and Copperbelt and the number of passengers involved in a day, month and year. This can give a partial indication of the utilisation of the Great North Road. One can also go further and determine the number of vehicles using a particular road in a day, month or year. Appropriate policy decisions can be made based on these statistics.
Conclusion
In the pursuit of achieving of economic development for our country, provision of infrastructure, both in terms of quantity and quality play an essential role. Economic and social infrastructure supports the processes of growth on which much of poverty reduction depends and also helps the poor access basic services which can improve their lives and income opportunities. It has been illustrated in this article that infrastructure statistics provide a comprehensive tool for decision-making by policymakers, industry, civic leaders, and the society as a whole. Physical infrastructure statistics help determine the value and capacity of infrastructure at a given time. For transport, it has been emphasised that this includes freight and passenger movements, and road, and rail activities.
These statistics help to describe the most important key features of transport.