Kagame hosts Museveni, Kenyatta for integration meet

Presidents Yoweri Museveni and his counterparts Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya plus South Sudanese leader Salva Kiir Mayardit will today join Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame in Kigali for the sixth summit on Northern Corridor integration projects.

Delegations from Burundi, Tanzania, and Ethiopia are also at the summit. Tanzania and Ethiopia are attending the meeting as observers.

The sixth summit on Northern Corridor Integration Projects opened in Kigali on Monday, with an experts’ meeting assessing the implementation of the projects.

The Council of Ministers who yesterday deliberated on recommendations from technical teams, will today submit their report of the recommendations’ assessment to the Heads of State at the summit today.

The ministers at the meeting yesterday included: Minister for Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa, Rwanda’s Finance and Economic Planning minister Claver Gatete, Burundi’s Denise Sinankwa, senior advisor to the president, Kenya’s Michael Kamau, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure, and Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

South Sudan was represented by Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin Bil, the minister for foreign affairs.

Projects that were to be assessed included the standard gauge railway that will connect Kigali to Mombasa port through Uganda, construction of a regional oil pipeline that will connect Kigali to Eldoret via Kampala, a regional power project, and fast tracking political federation.

Today’s Heads of State summit on the integration projects is expected to be attended by other high level officials, including Jin-Yong Cai, the chief executive of International Finance Corporation, an institution affiliated to the World Bank and offers investment, advisory and asset management services to encourage private sector development in developing countries.

Jin-Yong is expected to make some commitments on the financing of the regional oil pipeline as well as the Mombasa–Kigali standard gauge railway line that is estimated to cost about $13.5 billion.