RWANDA has initially opted to develop rail links to Indian Ocean ports through Tanzania because they were cheaper and shorter than the route transiting Kenya, Finance Minister Claver Gatete said.
According to him, studies done by member states in the six-nation East African Community (EAC) showed that the Tanzanian option would cost about 800 to 900 million US dollars. In an interview at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa in the capital, Kigali, Mr Gatete reported that the Kenyan project would cost one billion US dollars, he said.
“We are working on the Dar es Salaam one, which will be cheaper because it’s the shortest route,” the Rwandan minister told reporters. In 2013, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda agreed to link up to the Kenyan port of Mombasa along a standard-gauge railway estimated to cost 13 billion US dollars.
The project was scheduled to be completed by March 2018. The ‘East African’, a Nairobi-based newspaper, reported on May 3 that Rwanda was in talks with Tanzania and Burundi concerning a shared route through their countries instead because Uganda’s plans to develop a link to its northern neighbour, South Sudan, would delay the Rwandan portion of the project.
It’s the second time Kenya may lose out on plans to develop regional infrastructure. Last month, President John Magufuli secured an agreement to have a pipeline in western Uganda routed to the Tanzanian port of Tanga.
That scuppered an accord between Kenya and Uganda in October 2015 for the conduit to pass through northern Kenya to a proposed port at Lamu. The railway route via Tanzania will link Kigali to a port in Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, according to the project’s website.
A new railway is being built from Isaka in northwestern Tanzania to Kigali, with a branch to Musongati in neighbouring Burundi. The existing railway from Dar es Salaam to Isaka is being upgraded.
Mr Gatete said Rwanda planned to continue using ports in both Tanzania and Kenya. “Our trade goes through Dar es Salaam and Mombasa,” he said. “We will need both of them.”
Source: Daily News

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