On Tuesday, November 20, 2018, the Northern Corridor Transit and Transport Co-ordination Authority (NCTTCA) said it was deepening talks with Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) over plans to improve key road links on the Northern Corridor.
The agency’s executive secretary, Omae Nyarandi, had last week led a delegation to Kinshasa, where officials from the Transport and Infrastructure ministries of the two countries discussed the Mbarara-Kisangani road and the wider network that feeds into it.
The engagement followed a directive from the 30th sitting of the Northern Corridor Council of Ministers, held in Mombasa on August 3, 2018. According to Nyarandi, the discussions were still at an early stage, but the authority was already exploring how development partners could help finance the project.
He said the African Development Bank had shown interest, but stressed that the first step was to align the two governments on how the project would be implemented. “Our main objective was to first share information and get updates on the Mbarara-Kisangani road network infrastructure projects and get assurance of high level commitments for further bilateral engagements.”
The council had instructed the NCTTCA secretariat to work with Uganda and the DRC and mobilise funding from development partners to upgrade the road network.
The route under discussion covers the Mbarara-Bushenyi-Kikorongo-Mpondwe-Kasindi-BeniKomanda-Kisangani corridor, a 940km stretch that also forms part of the 6,000km Trans-African Highway linking Lagos in Nigeria to Mombasa.
The Northern Corridor itself runs from Mombasa port into the DRC and remains vital to Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DRC and South Sudan because it connects them to the coast. Delays along the route continue to cause major economic losses through slower movement of goods.
Inside the DRC, the Kasindi-BeniKomanda-Kisangani section is about 760km long, and most of it remains unpaved. In Uganda, the 180km Mbarara-Bushenyi-Kikorongo-Mpondwe section, with a link to Kasese, is a class II paved road in fair condition, although the Bushenyi-Katunguru stretch still needs reconstruction.
The NCTTCA said it would soon convene a tripartite meeting involving development partners and officials from Uganda and the DRC to advance the talks.
Nyarandi said an upgraded road network would improve security along the corridor, close a missing link on the Trans-African Highway, raise the value of agricultural produce through better market access and strengthen intra-African trade. “It will also increase the intra-African trade, thus boosting socioeconomic development on the continent,” he added.
