The State Minister for Works, Mr John Byabagambi said yesterday China Harbour Engineering Corporation (CHEC) has been cleared by authorities in Beijing-China and has already started work on the eastern (Malaba-Kampala) route of the Uganda Standard Gauge Railway.

Mr Byabagambi said the Chinese Transport ministry had written to him approving the company for the work-conducting feasibility studies and later to “possibly” construct the $8 billion railway Greenfield project.

“The Memorandum of Understanding we signed was to conduct feasibility for the SGR because we are slightly behind schedule. When this is done and approved then we shall have to go back to the table and negotiate the construction and related work.”

The August 14 letter signed by Chinese Transport minister Yang Chuantang said CHEC has completed and is constructing several railways projects in China including the two contract packages of high speed rail which forms part of the Lanzhou to Xinjiang and Shanghai to Kunming High speed rail network.

“These high speed (250 km/h) railways have higher technical and engineering requirements than the standard 120 km/h railways such as Uganda’s standard gauge railway,” the letter stated. Adding:

The latest development settles the dust that has been hovering over the project since June when the minister controversially cancelled a similar agreement with another Chinese company- China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) to construct/upgrade a railway line.

Mr Byabagambi, defending his decision said the MoU government had and signed in 2012 with CCECC was to upgrade the existing railway before the SGR was envisioned by the East African Heads of States of Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda.

The SGR is expected to run from Mombasa to Kampala to Kigali and with a northern route to the South Sudan capital, Juba. The leaders set a 2018 deadline for completion of construction.

Mr Byabagambi also clarified that the total cost of the project-the Uganda route-is still unknown pending completion of the feasibility studies to detail the geological and geotechnical assessments of the sites, railway engineering structures, and the cost of construction, among others, which will form the basis for negotiating a deal.

Feasibility study

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Works and Transport, Mr Alex Okello told Daily Monitor recently, that government had separately hired a German contractor, Gauff Ingenieure, to conduct and compile a separate feasibility studies report, which will be compared with the report submitted by CHEC.