NAIROBI, June 26 (Xinhua) -- Leaders of East Africa Community states implementing joint infrastructure projects on Tuesday agreed to speed up their implementation during a review of the progress at the 14th Summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects (NCIP), which was held in Nairobi on Tuesday after a two-year break.
Paul Kagame, the President of Rwanda, said the resumption of the review meetings held by all East Africa Community (EAC) members except Tanzania and Burundi will bring in new momentum to enable the region to complete the joint road, railway and power projects.
"This two-year break now enables us to continue with the momentum we had started on bringing our region together and working on various projects jointly for the benefit of our people," Kagame said in Nairobi during the summit hosted by Uhuru Kenyatta, President of Kenya and also attended by Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda. South Sudan leader Salva Kiir sent a special envoy to the event.
"We have made headway in bringing all stakeholders together in order to enable is realize the fruition of the projects that are very important to our people. This moment provides us with an opportunity to review what has been done and what should be done," said Kagame.
Kenyatta outlined some of the key achievements that Kenya has made especially the ongoing construction of the Standard Gauge Railway which is expected to link the Port of Mombasa to Uganda and Rwanda capitals of Kampala and Kigali respectively. The line will also ease transportation of goods from the port to South Sudan.
"We continue to implement other northern corridor projects including roads and power lines to be shared within the region in order to make it easier for our people to do business," said Kenyatta.
The Northern Corridor Integration Projects is a multilateral development initiative established in 2013 and is aimed at speeding up development in the region particularly the improvement of infrastructure for ease of movement of people, goods and services in the region.
Kenyatta spoke of the progress of the implementation of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as being one of the key successes of the regional initiative.
Kenya has completed the Mombasa-Nairobi line and embarked on the Nairobi-Naivasha section which is now approaching completion.
"We have already agreed with the contractors that that section will be completed by June of 2019. It will enable an even faster transfer of goods from Mombasa to the region," Kenyatta said.
According to the Kenyan president, a commercial contract for the Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba sections and a modern port at Kisumu has already been signed with the China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).
According to the meeting, Uganda signed a commercial contract with China Harbor Engineering Company in March 2015 and recently completed the project appraisal exercise which was held parallel to the ongoing negotiations of financing which are expected to be finalized by September this year.
In Rwanda, preliminary engineering design of the new SGR line from Kampala to Kigali was completed in January 2018 while in South Sudan, preparation for a bankable feasibility study for the Nimule-Juba SGR line is on-going and is expected to be completed by December this year.
