East Africa Region set for a major infrastructure facelift

East African leaders have endorsed plans for a major infrastructure project that will link all the East African countries including South  Sudan, which has applied to join the East African Community. 

The project, which will consist of the Central and Northern infrastructural Corridors will cover all the member states of the East African Community and will help minimize delays in the movement of goods and people across the region. 

President Paul Kagame (left)with Kenyan governors recently.

The leaders made this important decision at a regional summit in Uganda’s capital Kampala on Thursday February 13, which brought together Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, Rwanda’s Paul Kagame and officials from Tanzania, Burundi and South Sudan. 

Tanzania and Burundi which had since last year complained that the other three countries were edging them out of active participation appear to have softened their stand and sent representation although their presidents did not attend. 

Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda last year June launched a tripartite consultative summit focusing on improvement of infrastructure, initially leaving out Tanzania and Burundi in what was dubbed the “Coalition of the willing”, sparking off loud protests from Tazania’s President Jakaya Kikwete. 

However, leaders from the three countries in charge of the initiative have since assured the two countries that their tripartite consultations still promoted the goals of EAC integration.  

Speaking at the summit, President Kenyatta emphasized the urgency to fast-track the infrastructure project to help ease the movement of goods and facilitate trade in the region.

“The new central corridor will link waterways and power initiatives in the region,” The President told the summit.  

“I am certain that with concerted efforts of all of us, we can transform the region to an economic powerhouse in the continent and the world,” he added.

The President noted that major steps had been made towards the removal of in removal of non-tariff barriers to facilitate the free movement of people and goods since the 1st Tripartite Infrastructural conference last year. 

A special single tourist visa which will allow tourists to visit any of the three countries was launched during the summit. Kenya and Tanzania have also separately moved to ease tourist visits to either country including an arrangement where Kenyan tour firms will drop off tourists at designated towns in Tanzania.

As a mark of seriousness about easing travel by the people of the region, President Kenyatta and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame used their national identity cards as travel documents instead of their passports to enter Uganda. 

The three countries –Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda have agreed on the use of each country’s identity cards, students’ cards and voters’ cards as valid travel documents in the three countries.

Improved road network is critical to the region's growth.

Presidents and Museveni also underscored the importance of accelerating the implementation of various components of the Northern Corridor joint Infrastructural projects spearheaded by their countries.

Under the joint tripartite agreement, Uganda will lead the railway development and political federation sector while Rwanda is handle customs, single tourist visa and East African Community identity card. Kenya will lead the implementation of the oil pipeline and electricity generation.

Land-locked South Sudan, reeling from hostility from its northern neighbor, Sudan from which it seceded after 21 years of war, has applied to join the East Africa Community and has entered into agreements with Kenya to jointly fund the improvement of infrastructure from the Port of Lamu along Kenya’s Indian Ocean Coast. 

The new infrastructure initiative between the Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda is expected to be an additional improvement on South Sudan’s infrastructural needs as part of the Road Corridor will extend to Juba, the new nation’s capital.

Sudan depends to a large extent on Kenya and Uganda as its largest trading partners, importing most of its needs from or through the two countries. This explains the intense interest the two countries have hard in South Sudan’s recent outbreak of political and ethnic conflict.

Kenya, as the current chair of the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is leading the peace process while Uganda has sent in soldiers to bolster the Juba regime against rebels led by former Vice President Riek Machar.