#KENYA AND UGANDA TO INVEST NEARLY 600 MILLION US DOLLARS TO REHABILITATE OLD RAILWAY LINE
(Posted 19th May 2019)
Kenya’s failure to secure funding for the third section of the planned SGR railway line between Mombasa and the Ugandan border has led to some frantic activity on both sides to refurbish the existing old railway line between Naivasha and Malaba. The planned works are aiming to increase speeds and remove accident hotspots along the line.
A Ugandan delegation is presently touring Kenya to inspect, among other agenda points, the land granted by President Kenyatta to Uganda during a recent visit of President Museveni. This land should allow Uganda to establish an inland dry port where cargo containers can be stored before onward transportation either to Mombasa or to Kampala.
While the SGR station in Naivasha is over 40 kilometers away from the old narrow gauge railway station in Naivasha, have plans emerged to link the two stations by rail to make the transfer of containers from the SGR trains originating in Mombasa and destined for Kampala and beyond easier. Until that link has been built however will trucks have to carry containers from one station to the other, a time consuming and costly process.
The cost for the new rail link between the two stations has been given as over 200 million US Dollars.
Kenya will according to reports seen also invest some 400 million US Dollars to refurbish the narrow gauge railway line between Naivasha and Malaba while Uganda has similar plans for their narrow gauge line from the border to Kampala at an estimated cost of nearly 200 million US Dollars.
The added delay and doubts over the completion period – if at all – of the Mombasa to Kampala SGR now also gives Tanzania clear pole position in their collaboration with Rwanda, as these two countries have signed up to extend the central corridor SGR railway from the dry port town of Isaka to the Rwandan capital Kigali. The first section of this new railway line from Dar es Salaam to the town of Morogoro should be completed in the second half of 2019 and go into operation latest by early 2020. Construction will then continue for this fully financed project in Tanzania to Isaka while in Kigali construction for a railway terminal is ongoing in anticipation of the new SGR line reaching Kigali in 2021.
Once complete will the port of Dar es Salaam then arguably take away a major portion of Rwanda’s exports and imports from the port of Mombasa, for the lack of an SGR connection and the more expensive and longer transportation of goods by trucks.
It will also put further doubt into the realization of the SGR dreams of Uganda as the lack of Rwandan cargo will pull down the financial foundation of the feasibility and viability studies of the line to Kampala.
