gandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni said completion of the first phase of SGR has drastically lowered the costs of transporting goods within the region.
“It is three times more costly to transport anything on the road even with the old line,” said President Museveni, adding: “With SGR reaching Nairobi, it costs eight cents dollars per metric a tonne compared to 21 cents dollars by road.”
President Museveni was speaking Thursday at the opening of the Joint Retreat of East Africa Community Heads of State in Entebbe.
The first commercial train ferrying cargo on the SGR from Mombasa arrived in Nairobi’s ultra-modern inland container depot on January 1 this year.
The cargo train carried 104 containers, which is almost equivalent to the trucks operating daily on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway.
At the retreat attended by Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya), John Pombe Magufuli (Tanzania) and Salva Kiir (South Sudan), President Museveni said the on-going infrastructural projects are a clear demonstration of a region making progress.
President Museveni praises Kenya for SGR progress - Capital Business
The Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) will lead the training of engineers to fast-track the construction of the standard gauge railway.
This was announced Monday by the National Enterprise Corporation managing director, Maj Gen James Mugira, at the ministry of defence headquarters in Mbuya, a Kampala suburb.
“We shall extend specialised training to all our officers in the UPDF Engineering Brigade including the wananchi (civilians) towards the realisation of this big project,” he said.
NEC is a State corporation that was established in 1989 as a commercial arm of the army.
Gen Mugira was speaking at the welcome ceremony of ten UPDF/NEC officers who attained specialised training in railway construction from China’s Shijiazhuang Tiedao University.
The group will train other officers in the engineering brigade and staff at the ministry of works and transport on the construction of the modern railway facility.
Uganda military to train SGR engineers