Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan yesterday discussed challenges that are affecting the progress of the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) that is expected to link the four countries and ease trade within the East Africa Community (EAC).
The meeting was hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta at Safari Park Hotel in Nairobi and attended by presidents;Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame as well as a special envoy of President Salva Kiir in a Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit that will also review plans to construct a crude oil refinery in East Africa.
Ethiopia, Tanzania, Burundi and DR. Congo are attending the summit as observers.
Kenya is the first country in the East African region to have made significant progress in the construction of the SGR, with the first phase between Mombasa to Nairobi already complete and in use.
The Kenyan government has embarked on construction of the Nairobi-Naivasha SGR section which is now 50 percent complete while a commercial contract for the Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba section and a modern port at Kisumu has already been signed with the China Communication Construction Company.
Uganda after signing a deal in March 2015 has completed the SGR project appraisal exercise which was held parallel to the ongoing negotiations of financing which are expected to be finalised by September this year.
Rwanda on the other hand, completed in January this year, the preliminary engineering design of the new SGR line from Kampala to Kigali while in South Sudan, preparation for a bankable feasibility study for the Nimule-Juba SGR line is on-going and is expected to be complete by December this year.
However in what could rekindle memories of the infamous Coalition of the willing, Tanzania was not invited for the meeting.
