Uganda plans to build a rail line linking a town in the east to a proposed port on Lake Victoria for a combined $600 million, which will provide better logistics links through Tanzania to the Indian Ocean.
Feasibility studies for the 60-kilometer (37-mile) railroad linking Tororo to the proposed port in the nearby Busia District are complete, Perez Wamburu, the Standard Gauge Rail Project’s coordinator, said in an interview in the capital, Kampala.
The line will connect with a €2.7 billion ($2.9 billion) track that will link Uganda’s capital of Kampala to Malaba at the border with Kenya. Ultimately, it would enable movement of cargo across the lake between the new harbor and Tanzania’s Port of Mwanza, which is linked to the Indian Ocean hub of Dar es Salaam by a railroad.
Uganda considered the route after Kenya stalled a plan to extend its section of the line from Naivasha town to Malaba, Wamburu said.
Uganda, which mainly uses Kenya’s port of Mombasa, said it got assurance that Kenya would extend the line to their common border.
Uganda on Monday signed a deal with Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi Holdings AS to build the Kampala-Malaba line. The deal is the first phase of the country’s plans of more than 1,700 kilometers of standard gauge railroads, Wamburu said.
