The Kenyan government has warned of “negative consequences” if Uganda’s Committee on Physical Infrastructure’s damning report on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in which they demand that Kampala downgrades to China Class 2 rather than China Class 1 in the regional project is pushed forward.
This follows a misleading report compiled by the committee of parliament chaired by Hon Dennis Sabiti (Rubanda County) is questioning the class of railway designed by Uganda, cost and capacity building of the project. His report alleged that Ugandan officials have designed a Chinese class 2 standard of SGR contrary to Class 1 they claim they are building and hopelessly overpriced.
There is fear that the compromising and embarrassing information that Hon. Sabiiti and his group have in the report will lead the rhe SGR project being dogged by political fights, big ones.
Kenya railways managing director, Atanas Maina is quoted by media as saying if one country chooses to build a China Class 2 as demanded by some radical Ugandan MPs, then it had pulled out of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP) that was signed by the Presidents of Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and Rwanda during a landmark summit at Munyonyo in Kampala in 2014.
Mr Maina emphasized that if Kenya is building the Class One, the believe that the other partners are doing the same to meet the collective goal of having a seamless connectivity and interoperability of the entire network.
Uganda’s Works and Transport minister Monica Azuba also recently said that those behind the Parliamentary report that indicates that the planned SGR, is overpriced arrived at the conclusion based on its findings during benchmarking trips to Ethiopia and Kenya, which is not right.
“It is not the construction price. In engineering projects, the planning estimates are refined by feasibility studies, culminating into feasibility estimates,” Ms Azuba, an engineer said. “The engineer’s estimates, guides in the bidding, but varies from the final contractor’s price and, therefore, construction price.”
It is important to note that Kenya has finished civil works on the first phase of its SGR, the 472-kilometre track from Mombasa to Nairobi, which will be commissioned in June, paving the way for construction of the second phase extending to Naivasha and Uganda’s 273-kilometre track linking Kampala to Kenya’s border town of Malaba will be built at a cost of $2.3 billion.
Most importantly, Uganda’s section will move from Malaba to Kampala and then connect to Rwanda through Mirama hills. The line will also connect to the DRC through Kasese and Arua districts.
SGR project co-coordinator Kasingye Kyamugambi recently told TheUgandan that they would take 42 months to complete the line.
