Madagascar has fallen behind in terms of development. The growth long awaited by the population has not materialised. This will be my focus during this second term. I have done everything [in my first term] to catch up on growth through the construction of the infrastructure that the population needs.
Ill just give a few examples. Many children not just in Madagascar, but in Africa in general walk for several hours to school. In Madagascar, we face this reality. With my government, I built 4,198 classrooms to educate more than 200,000 schoolchildren and students.
This is a record, not just for Madagascar but for Africa. Imagine a large country like Madagascar, with 25m inhabitants, from 1891 until 2019, we only have 18 referral hospitals. During my mandate I built 28 hospitals with operating theatres, maternity wards, oxygen generators, etc.
Certainly, the country has come a long way, but has considerable needs What are the priorities?Precisely for this reason, during my first mandate, I tried to build and build. Since independence we have had only 42 courts in our 119 districts. Even to obtain a legal document such as a criminal record extract, people were obliged to travel, even cross the sea, as in Sainte-Marie for example. We have built courts and hospitals to facilitate and support the daily needs of the population.
I also built the first motorway in Madagascar. Today, it takes 10-12 hours to travel the 360km from Antananarivo to the large port of Tamatave. With the new road, the journey will only take 2 hours 30 minutes. It is the development of these projects that I would like to continue. In the south of my country, we still face famine from the drought which hit this region [last year]. We have built a 97km pipeline to supply water to more than 60 municipalities.
