Kenyan Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen (L) and Uganda’s Katumba Wamala speak to media in Mombasa, Kenya on July 28, 2023. PHOTO | WACHIRA MWANGI | NMG
Kenya and Uganda have revived the near-dead project to build the standard gauge railway between them, signalling renewed efforts to upgrade infrastructure on the Northern Corridor for better trade. But the joint declaration issued on Friday by the two governments is highly dependent on how soon a financier comes on board. It is lack of money that killed the earlier plans, rendering the SGR the “railway to nowhere.”
This time, ministers in charge of transport said they had renewed a joint search for the money, which could include loans or an arrangement for the public-private partnerships. If all goes to plan, the contractor should be on site from December to build the SGR extension from Naivasha to Kampala, in the immediate term, before extending to Uganda’s frontier towns with Rwanda and South Sudan.
