Most African infrastructure failures are not construction failures. They are origination failures that construction is later asked to disguise. Demand is asserted rather than contracted. Land is promised rather than perfected. Offtakers are named rather than bound.
The remedy is unglamorous: earlier no’s, tighter screens, and a model that is allowed to kill the project.
Concessionary capital is a tool. Used well, it takes residual risks the market cannot price — currency, first-loss, tenor. Used poorly, it subsidises structure that should never have been built.
The test is additionality. If the project would close on commercial terms, blend is theatre.
A port without a hinterland is a photograph. A highway without a terminal is a cost. We underwrite movement as a system: berth, yard, gate, road or rail, dry port, and the industrial demand that pays for all of it.
Isolated assets attract isolated returns.