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Construction of the Standard Gauge Railway will begin this year in August.
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It is estimated to cost about $2.2 billion.
Work will begin on the long-awaited Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as the Ugandan government is in talks with Turkish construction company, Yapi Merkezi to commence construction. The Standard Gauge Railway is situated in the Eastern and Western parts of Malaba-Kampala-Kigali.
However the details of the contract are not publicly known, it is estimated that the project will cost about $2.2 billion. The Ugandan government made the announcement through its Twitter handle on 16th May.
The government’s decision comes after the termination of the China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) contract that was previously contracted to build the 273-kilometer line from Malaba to Kampala. CHEC’s contract was terminated after it failed to convince China Exim Bank to finance the project in November 2022.
Currently, Merkezi company is already working on the SGR project in Tanzania. The government disclosed that the SGR group would hold meetings from 24 to 26 ahead of the Partner State Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIPs).
Without elaborating further on the agenda of the consultations, the tweet reads “The government will interface with Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC). according to reports, the Kenyan government has agreed to extend the SGR from Naivasha to Malaba’s border and also a KShs2.1 trillion plan to extend the SGR to Kisumu, Malaba, and Isiolo by the end of June 2027.
Works on the Ugandan SGR will commence in August 2023 and upon completion, the Standard Gauge Railway is expected to ease the transportation of people and goods between the East African countries of Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania as well. The government is presently focusing on compensating locals residing in the confines of the railway line.
Meanwhile, construction of the SGR has not completely been an easy one; the project has encountered several challenges along the way, including cancellation of contracts, delayed procurement, processes, spending billions of money in compensation, and technical hiccups among other challenges. Since the ideation of the project in 2014, it has failed to kick off due to a number of constraints.