I do not have any experience with infrastructure in Africa generally - I have consulted to Anglo American on rail capacity improvement in South Africa - which as you would know is totally different to places like Cameroon and Congo.. However I do have experience with infrastructure planning, funding and development in South America and Australia. I can add one further point to the debate.
It is a novice mistake to believe that low local labour costs will reduce the cost of building infrastructure in African regions. Infrastructure planning, design and construction is a capital and technology intensive process. Unskilled labour is a minor input.
In fact, the total cost of labour incurred in large scale construction is significantly higher in lesser developed regions due to the huge cost of bringing in and supporting essential professional and skilled labour. If SDL has in fact based mine and infrastructure development costs on the basis of large amounts of low-cost, unskilled local labour, they will have seriously underestimated the true costs.
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