Uganda is in discussions with Yapi Merkezi, a Turkish construction company, to build the long-awaited Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) on the eastern and western portions of Malaba-Kampala-Kigali.
On May 16, the administration released the information via their Twitter account.
The project is anticipated to cost roughly $2.2 billion, although the contract’s specifics have not been made public.
Following the cancellation of China Harbour Engineering Company’s (CHEC) prior contract to construct the 273-kilometer line from Malaba to Kampala, the government made its decision.
When the company was unable to persuade China Exim Bank to finance the project, the contract with CHEC was terminated in November 2022.
Merkezi Corporation is already working on the SGR project in Tanzania.
The government announced that the SGR committee would hold meetings from April 24 to April 26 in advance of the Partner States Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIPs).
“The government will interface with Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) and other stakeholders,” the tweet read without further elaborating on the agenda of the consultations.
In a recent report, the government of Kenya ultimately agreed to extend the SRG from Naivasha to the Malaba border, setting sights on a KShs2.1 trillion (Ushs56t) plan to extend the SGR to Kisumu, Malaba, and Isiolo by the end of June 2027.
After completion, SGR is expected to make it easier to transfer people and products between Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda in East Africa. The government is currently concentrating on paying communities who remain along the railway line.
According to the administration, construction on the Ugandan side will begin in August.
The SGR’s construction process hasn’t always gone smoothly. Along the road, the project has encountered a number of difficulties, including contract cancellations, sluggish procurement procedures, spending billions of dollars on compensation, and technical problems, among others.
The SGR has been unable to start since 2014 for a variety of reasons.