Uganda plans to invest $205-million in restoring a railway from the capital Kampala to the Kenyan border following delays to securing funding for a planned high-speed alternative to the route.
The move will boost monthly freight capacity to 120 000 metric tons from the current 20 000 tons by 2026, Stanley Sendegeya, Uganda Railways’ CFO, said in an interview on Thursday.
“We keep on turning down customers because with the little money from government, amounting to $2-million annually, we can’t handle much business,” he said. “Customers turn to using trucks.”
The East African nation has experienced delays to the funding of a $2.3-billion standard-gauge railway for the Kampala–Malaba route, for which the Export-Import Bank of China is expected to finance 85% of the budget. The project, conceived six years ago, will be built simultaneously with the Kenyan section linking to the Ugandan border, according to the government.