Rift Valley Railways To Invest shillings 50 billion to upgrade the Uganda Railways.


Good news to all those doing business and intending to invest more here in Uganda. The Railway is about to be re-instated after nearly two decades since it went out of services.
The Rift Valley Railways, RVR,the concessionaire for Uganda Railways, plans to invest a total of $29 million(shillings 50.4 billion) by June 2008 to upgrade the quality of the country’s rail network and boost the efficiency of cargo transportation.
If the company follows through on its stated objective, it will have nearly met the minimum 5 year capital investment set for it by the government of Uganda and Kenyan-$30million(52.5billion shillings) in less than two years.

In an interview recently, with Mr. Roy Puffet,the managing director of RVR said the company had initially concentrated its efforts on specialized training of personnel and repairing equipment so that it can support daily operations. “For the last 11 months since we took over we have basically been setting the ground rules, organizing systems and structures, and fixing broken equipment,” he said.
“Now that we are done with that we will embark on serious investment programmes”.
The most pressing problems with Uganda and Kenya’s railway network, he said. were dis-functional wagons and locomotives. For instance, out of the 1500 wagons that Uganda has, only a few ones are in usable shape. In Kenya only 47% of its 4000 wagons are in proper conditions.
Inadequate wagons result in slow cargo delivery and affects its business which incur loses in delays. Mr. Roy said there would be no purchase of new wagons in the first five years of operation because the existing stock is enough if it were put back in good condition.” we will continue repairing all the wagons” he said
Responding to the persistent carping from Uganda manufacturers and importers about the cargo pile-ups at the Mombassa port, Mr Roy said that RVR is not to blame but placed responsibility on Kenya ports Authority, KPA.
He said KPA’s capacity for container clearing and loading had been long outstripped by demand and that as a result cargo destined for Kampala was now taking weeks at the port before it could be loaded for haulage to Kampala.
However with all these mis-coming,the re-doing of the Uganda Railways is indeed a very big boost to the economies of the five East African countries. For countries like Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi which are land locked. The ports of Mombassa and Der e salaam are vital. And with Railways transport being thought of, indeed East Africa is heading in the right direction and Uganda in particular.

Chris in Kampala