#AVIATION, ROAD AND BRIDGE INFRASTRUCTURE BENEFITS FROM SHIFT OF FOCUS
(Posted 25th April 2018)
Important infrastructure projects are unfolding across much of the Eastern African region as governments make a deliberate effort to improve regional connectivity but road, rail and air.
In Uganda will later this year the first ‘Super Highway‘ open its toll gates when the Kampala – Munyonyo – Entebbe highway will open, linking the international airport with the city but also, of key importance, with the lake side Lake Victoria Golf Resort & Spa and the Munyonyo Speke and Commonwealth resorts.
Transit time to and from will be cut into less than half, bringing relief to long suffering locals and giving swift access to foreign visitors.
Also nearing completion is the new bridge over the Nile in Jinja, financed to a large extend by the Empire of Japan, finally, after more than 50 years, providing a new link between Eastern and Central Uganda over the world’ longest river near its source.
In Kenya, with infrastructure around the capital Nairobi continuing to reshape traffic patterns and the new standard gauge railway now in operation, will additional rail and road projects advance or near completion. This applies in particular at the Kenya coast where a new SGR access route into the port of Mombasa is taking shape while the Dongo Kundu bypass, which links the international airport in Mombasa and the Nairobi to Mombasa highway to the south coast, is shaping up.
In Rwanda is an entirely new international airport under construction at Bugesera, a Private Public Partnership Project worth over 800 million US Dollars while construction is also underway of a new rail terminal which will allow Rwanda to link to the central rail corridor which will connect the hinterland to the port of Dar es Salaam when the new Tanzanian SGR railway line is completed.
Finally in Tanzania has the government proposed to inject some 500 billion Tanzanian Shillings towards the acquisition of new aircraft for national airline Air Tanzania while at the same time proposing to spend a further 215 billion Tanzania Shillings towards the modernization and expansion of such airports like Kilimanjaro, Mwanza, Songwe / Mbeya, Mpanda, Mtwara, Arusha, Kigoma, Tabora, Dodoma, Bukoba, Sumbuwanga and Shinyanga.
Such capital expenditure invested in infrastructure assets will reshape the economic landscapes in years to come and will be catalysts of change in the region.
