The African Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed its support the Kisumu-Uganda expressway project through a US $1.4million funding that will be used
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has expressed its support the Kisumu-Uganda expressway project through a US $1.4million funding that will be used for a feasibility study on the project.
East African Community (EAC) Deputy Secretary General for Planning and Infrastructure Steven Mlote confirmed the report and said the funds will be used to assess the viability of the 256km road that will terminate in Kakira—a town in Uganda’s border district of Jinja.
Kisumu-Uganda expressway project
The proposed four-lane expressway project aims to run from Kisumu to Uganda through Busia in an upgrade targeted to boost regional integration, trade and economic development.The road is part of improvements on the Northern Corridor, a key trader route in East Africa providing landlocked countries like Uganda with faster access to the port of Mombasa.
“The funding from the African Development Bank would be used to conduct feasibility studies on the 256km multinational Kisumu-Kisian-Busia/Kakira-Malaba-Busitema-Busia expressway project. The proposed intervention in this segment consists of the rehabilitation of the existing road two-lane single carriageway to bitumen standard while upgrading it to a two-lane double carriageway along 104 km,” said Steven Mlote in a statement.
The 104km four-lane stretch will run from Kisian in Kisumu to Busia border town. The project will see the construction of an 11km link road between Kisian and Kisumu bypass. Another 127 km will be built between Jinja and Malaba, which will be connected to a 20km stretch that will run along the border to Busia.
The high-speed highway will be the continuation of the $1.48 billion Kampala-Jinja expressway, which is expected to be completed by 2025. A private concessionaire will be procured for a period of 30 years including an eight-year construction period on a design-build-finance-operate-transfer basis under a PPP model, where motorists will be expected to pay a toll to access the Kampala expressway.
The roads form part of the Mombasa–Nairobi–Kampala–Kigali expressway which was given a high priority at the 4th EAC Heads of States Retreat on Infrastructure Development held in February 2018 in Kampala.
The goal is to cut the cost of transport and boost trade. East Africa now boasts some of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, with inefficient transport often seen as one of the major obstacles to expanding businesses.