New standard Gauge railway to use majority local labor

By Moses Kidandi
The Government has started mapping out a total of 60 KM sites for installation of High voltage Electricity supply to the standard gauge railway sub station in Uganda.
This is  preparation of execution of  the on going plan as agreed between the Government of Uganda and the government of Kenya to complete their respective sections of Naivasha-Kisumu to malaba-Kenya,and Malaba- Kampala in Uganda by June 2022.
Under the arrangement,sections of the Kampala metropolitan area will have the  standard gauge railway in a bid to ease traffic and de congest the city. Works minister Monica Azuba says government has hatched a plan to spend over seven hundred million dollars  on local labor by having  local participation of Ugandans during the construction of the Malaba Kampala  railway line. The minister  added  that government has decided to have 90 percent of the workforce composed of Ugandans. She emphasized that materials like cement and re enforcement steel should be acquired from Ugandan industries.
Finance minister Matia Kasaija confirmed that all the necessary arrangements have been made for the project to kick off in Uganda.
After  government of Uganda took over operations of the old meter gauge railway in January 2018 from the concessionaire (Rift valley Railways) after poor performance of the concession,it has  embarked on a plan to restore railway transport services on the meter gauge.