Africa-Press – Kenya. Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen has commended his counterparts from the East African Community for their commitment towards development of SGR.
In his remarks at the conclusion of the joint ministerial committee meeting Friday, Murkomen noted that this would ensure the project is delivered as planned.
The meeting dubbed the SGR Cluster was held in Mombasa and saw respective ministers from Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo take part.
The SGR Cluster is one of the 14 Clusters under the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIPs).
In a joint communique signed by the leaders, the summit welcomed commitments by ministers to commence the construction of Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba, Malaba-Kampala and Kampala- Bihanga-Kasese-Mpondwe leading into DRC.
Others are Bihanga- Mirama Hills v. Mirama Hills to Kigali, Tororo-Gulu-Nimule leading into South Sudan and GuluPakwach-Vurra leading into DRC after securing financing for Malaba-Kampala SGR section.
The ministers also reaffirmed their commitment expediting the completion of construction of the remaining SGR sections from Naivasha in Kenya to Uganda, Rwanda, South Sudan and DRC and develop an implementation roadmap.
The meeting also provided a platform for the leaders to review the decisions of the Kampala ministerial meeting of May last year on the development of the SGR.
In a status report on the implementation of the 14th summit of NCIP held in 2018, the ministers heard that the Mombasa-Nairobi-Naivasha SGR section is fully operational and that Kenya and that Uganda has completed the harmonisation of the technical specifications and standards for the SGR.
The leaders were informed that Uganda is in the final stages of negotiations with the proposed Contractor-Yapi Merkezi-with the contract set to be signed by the end of May 2024.
It was also noted that the partner states are pursuing resource mobilization and that the construction of the Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba and Malaba-Kampala section is expected to commence before end of 2024 after joint mobilization of resources.
According to Murkomen, they further agreed to harmonise planning and development of inland water transport infrastructure in order to provide seamless multimodal transport services and speed up the review of the Tripartite Agreement on water transport on Lake Victoria.
He disclosed that Kenya seeks to leverage private sector partnerships in the extension of the SGR line in an effort to ensure seamless cross-border movement of goods and people.
“This is in addition to creating special economic zones along the corridor that will transform areas with stop stations into economic hubs,” he said.
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