Railways management dissolved

Jul 17, 2006

Works and transport minister John Nasasira has dissolved the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) management and appointed three interim managers to oversee the transfer of the corporation to the new concessionaire,

Works and transport minister John Nasasira has dissolved the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) management and appointed three interim managers to oversee the transfer of the corporation to the new concessionaire, reports Sylvia Juuko.

“With the eminent take-over by the concessionaire, I have in consultation with the privatisation minister, constituted an Interim Transition Management Team (IMT) of three people to ensure a smooth transition from URC to the concessionaire,” he said.

Sources said the interim team, which takes over today, comprises officials of Canary Inc, the Government advisors.

Nasasira was yesterday addressing URC workers and management on their terminal benefits at the URC headquarters, Kampala.

The new team has a chief executive officer, chief finance officer and head of legal services.

Nasasira assured URC employees that their terminal benefits will be paid by July 31 before the concessionaire takes over on August 1. Both Kenya and Uganda railways corporations were handed to Rift Valley Railways Corporation.

The Government will pay over 1,200 URC workers over sh16b in terminal benefits.

Flanked by state minister for works Simon Ejua, Privatisation Unit boss Michael Opagi and URC board chairman Paul Etiang, Nasasira thanked URC workers for their services, adding that priority would go to them to fill the new positions.

Nasasira said as part of the concession, some of the support services will be outsourced to small and medium enterprises set up by the former employees.
“Worries of unemployment should not overwhelm you.

Some activities are to be outsourced to SMEs (small firms) set up by former employees in areas like maintenance of the permanent way, cleaning services and security for which grant funding has been obtained,” he said.

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