Friends of the Rail Forum

SUMMARY

- The rail project was set to increase the region’s competitiveness and lower the cost of doing business.
- Six years later, the grand rail project appears to be in trouble, with the chances of its completion hanging by a thread.
- Kenya is expected to start repaying its SGR loan in the next fiscal year (2019/2020), but this debt obligation may be difficult to meet given that the Madaraka Express operating between Mombasa and Nairobi is not generating enough revenue.

SUMMARY

- The move by Uganda puts the East African dream of achieving a seamless northern corridor transport network in a limbo.
- SGR is part of the northern corridor transport network, which connects the Port of Mombasa to the neighbouring land-locked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan.
- Should Kenya fail to get funds for extension of the SGR to Kisumu, then the planned construction of a multi-billion port in Kisumu will stall too.

In Summary

- A tripartite agreement to develop and operationalise the SGR between Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali, with branch lines to Kisumu (Kenya) and Pakwach/Gulu-Nimule (Uganda) was subsequently signed.
- In May 2014, convinced about the benefits of the high speed train, South Sudan acceded to the agreement to extend the line to Juba.

Kenya will spend $210 million on linking and upgrading older tracks with its new standard-gauge railway as it abandons a plan to extend the Chinese-funded project to Uganda’s border that would have created a faster export route to the Indian Ocean for landlocked neighbors.

Of the sum, $60 million will fund a 43-kilometer (26.7 mile) meter-gauge line that will act to connect the old and new railways...

As Tanzania continues with the construction of the standard gauge railway, the government has also embarked on revamping the old metre gauge railway network built by colonialists over a century ago...

Tanzania's recent move mirrors Kenya's and Uganda's, both of whom have announced plans to revamp their old lines amid uncertainty over the progress of the joint SGR line on the Northern Corridor, due to lack of funding...