Ugandan government signed a 199 billion shilling (USD 53.2 million equivalent) contract with China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) to continue rehabilitation work on the Tororo-Gulu metre-gauge railway line linking the east and north of the country to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.
The project covers a 375 km long section and will include the rehabilitation of the railway network, the construction of railway structures (bridges and tunnels) and the commissioning of the signalling system. The work is expected to take two years and at the end of the work the total distance of the Northern Rail Corridor will exceed 700 km.
The infrastructure will link to the Gulu Logistics Hub, a 200,000 TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) capacity platform to help Uganda Railway Corporation (URC) reduce the cost of transport and improve the movement of goods to and from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The project was originally awarded in 2020 to the French company Sogea Satom, but the contract was terminated last year because the Ugandan government failed to meet its payment commitments. The European Union, which co-financed the project with the Ugandan government, also cancelled the 100 billion shillings grant promised for the works. Now, as work resumes, the authorities in Kampala have said that the infrastructure will be financed from the state’s own funds.
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