Chinese firm signs deal to mend Tororo-Gulu railway line

Tororo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The China Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC, has signed a contract with the government to rehabilitate the Tororo to Gulu section of the meter gauge railway line.

This comes days after the company completed the rehabilitation of the Malaba-Tororo stretch which is now operational.

The signing was presided over by Al-Hajji Abdallatiff Dhakaba Wangubo, the Uganda Railways Corporation-URC Board Chairman. Wangubo expressed satisfaction with the quality and speed of the Chinese company in the completed phase.

He says that completing the task within the timeline had saved the entity money and other resources, and the project will go a long way in boosting economic activity in the region and also protecting roads from overuse by trucks.

The 375-kilometer railway line runs through Mbale, Soroti, and Lira before terminating at the Gulu Logistics Hub (GLH), bringing the total distance of the northern corridor so far to more than 700 kilometers.

The rehabilitation works for the Tororo – Gulu line are scheduled to last 24 months, but the contractor is given one more month to organize the needed materials, equipment, and manpower.

Today, @GovUganda, @MoWT_Uganda and URC as implementing agency have signed a contract with the China Road and Bridge Corporation to rehabilitate the 375km railway line from Tororo – Gulu for a period of 24 months. The project is funded by @GovUganda at USh. 199.9Bn. @GCICUganda pic.twitter.com/4U9PfopkF2

— UGANDA RAILWAYS CORPORATION (@RailwaysUganda) April 13, 2023

URC Acting Managing Director, David Bulega Musoke urged the contractor to use the same commitment and complete the project within time, so as to realize the much-needed boost to business in the northern region.

The 199.9 billion-shilling project is fully funded by the government of Uganda, according to Wangubo, as part of the efforts to increase the stock and quality of strategic infrastructure to accelerate Uganda’s competitiveness and create integrated transport infrastructure and services in the country.

He called on the contractor to abide by the local content clauses in the contract.  He said that this will help empower Ugandans economically by giving them business but also training them to be able to take on other projects or assignments with URC.

Dai Dexin, the Country Manager of CRBC pledged that they will beat the deadline and could finish the project even before the said date.

This, he says, is because URC has been very supportive of all the company’s undertakings which had made it easy for them to accomplish the work accordingly.  Dai says they will put emphasis on training domestic manpower as a way of transferring technology.

The works will feature drainage improvement, including the construction of new culverts and lining of side drains; earthworks; relocation of utilities, and rehabilitation of five steel girder bridges.

Others are railway track relaying works including ballasting, supply of new railway track materials, refurbishment of existing railway track materials, and construction of level crossings including signage.

Future plans include extending the line to Pakwach in West Nile.

In 2020, European firm Sogea Santon was contracted for the works funded by both the European Union-EU and the government, but the contract last year ran into funding problems on the part of the government, leading to its termination.

The EU also terminated its grant contract with Uganda which was worth almost 100 billion Shillings.

*****

URN