The standard gauge railway (SGR) Nairobi-Naivasha tunnel. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
The government of Uganda has dismissed claims that it has abandoned the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project.
Uganda’s
Minister in charge of Works and Transport Monica Azuba said the reports
appearing in a cross section of the media were false and unfounded.
Ms
Azube said Uganda was firmly committed to the project, adding that a
tender for consultancy and construction of the line has already been
awarded.
Uganda, she said understands the importance of
the project and was making steps towards signing a loan agreement with
Exim Bank of China before rolling out the project.
“Some
90 percent of cargo comes to Uganda by road and this has really
increased our road maintenance costs which we know shall come down
drastically once the SGR is in place therefore we cannot afford to
abandon the project,” she said.
'DELIBERATE DELAY'
The delay in starting construction of the line, she said, was deliberate to let Kenya make progress on Phase II of the project.
“We
do not want to construct a hanging line. We are waiting for the line
from Nairobi to get near Kisumu then we start,” she said.
Uganda, she added was also learning from the Kenyan situation and reviewing agreements before embarking on the project.
Speaking
in Kisumu on Wednesday where she paid a courtesy call on Lake Victoria
Basin Commission Secretariat, Azube said everything was on course.
'OLD LINE REFURBISHED'
She
added that the ongoing refurbishment on the metre gauge railway line in
Uganda should not be seen as a move to abandon the SGR project.
“We
received funds from the European Union to refurbish the old line which
we want to run concurrently with the SGR to connect other parts of
Uganda,” she said.
The minister added that Uganda was
also committed to opening up transport in Lake Victoria to cut the huge
costs of road maintenance.
“Lake Victoria is a great
resource to us and as we put up modern railways infrastructure we must
also think of how to open up the lake for transport,” she said.
Lake Victoria, despite having the potential to connect the three East African Countries, is largely underutilised.
Very few vessels ply different routes within the lake which records over 5, 000 deaths annually as a result of drowning.
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