A Rift Valley Railways train wagon at the Kampala station. FILE PHOTO | MONITOR
After turning to marine transport and the revamping of the old
metre-gauge rail network as options that will ease pressure from the
country’s road infrastructure in the medium term, Uganda is coming to
terms with the reality that its standard gauge railway project remains a
long way from taking shape.
Officials maintain that
Kampala is still committed to building the SGR, but pending “issues to
resolve” about the project’s financing and its link to that of Kenya
mean the Northern Corridor SGR plans are in tatters, for now.
Focus has shifted from the SGR as the government has started working on options.
According
to Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, the government will this financial
year undertake to rehabilitate 42 railway wagons as well as repair bad
spots along the Port-Bell-Kampala route that links with the central
corridor.
And for the first time in 10 years, Uganda
Railways Corporation landed a 900-tonne capacity cargo ship at Port bell
in Kampala from Mwanza in June this year, giving the sense that Kampala
is serious about revamping the Central Corridor route, abandoned in
2006 and which, depending on cargo availability, operates 26 voyages per
month.
Again, this month, Kampala also looked to be
planning further away from the envisaged Northern Corridor SGR network
when it announced that with the European Union, it would jointly finance
the revamping of its old-metre gauge railway leg from the eastern
Uganda town of Tororo to Gulu in the north.
However, the downside for Kampala is that the tonnage that the
metre gauge carries is way below that by the SGR when it comes to cargo.
Under
the Northern Corridor Integration Projects, partner states of Uganda,
Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan committed to building a synchronised
seamless railway transport system.
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