In a bid to boost, economic growth, regional trade and integration, the government of President Kaguta Museveni has sealed an agreement with a Turkish firm, Yapi Mekerzi to debut the first section of a 1,700 kilometers railway line to debut in November. The deal inked on Monday will see the construction firm build a rail line from Kampala through Malaba, the border with Kenya to Mombasa.
Uganda’s government of President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni and Turkish construction firm Yapi Merkezi have inked a contract to build a 272 kilometre long section railway, a Ugandan official announced on Monday.
As per the nation’s Standard Gauge Railway Project coordinator, Perez Wamburu, the agreement is for the first section of a planned 1,700 km electric rail line, and the segment would cost 2.7 billion euros ( approximately $3 billion) and is part of efforts to boost regional collaboration.
The project which will commence in November this year, will increase trade and reduce transport costs, Uganda’s works ministry permanent secretary, Bageya Waiswa, underlined at the signing ceremony. He also asserted that Uganda will use its own funds and credit from export credit organisations to finance the project, which will take 48 months to complete once started.
This milestone initiative comes a few days after the signing of an agreement with the Central African Republic to boost cooperation in the transport sector.
The rail section will run from the capital Kampala to Malaba at the border with Kenya, connecting landlocked Uganda to its neighbour’s rail network and on to the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa.
In 2015, Uganda had entered into an agreement with the China Harbour and Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) to implement the project on condition the firm helped secure funds for the railway from the Chinese government. After years of fruitless talks, Uganda last year terminated the agreement and entered talks with Yapi Merkezi, which is carrying out a similar project in neighbouring Tanzania.
