Multiplex to repair Busembatia-Jinja railway line

                   

RVR the concessionaire of the Uganda Kenya railway has awarded the tender to repair nine major culverts between Tororo and Jinja to Multiplex ltd a Ugandan Engineering company at a total cost of sh12.2b.

 

“This marks a historic milestone for RVR and the rehabilitation of the Kenya-Uganda Railway” said Brown Ondego, RVR’s Group Chief Executive. The replacement of the nine culverts is one of the priority projects in the Capital Expenditure programme to rehabilitate the railway infrastructure.” 

 

He said “Once completed, the reliability and efficiency of our operations will improve significantly as we will be able to operate bigger capacity trains, thereby improving our loading capacity and reducing transit times into Uganda.’’

 

RVR recently announced a drawdown of US$ 49 Million, which was the first tranche of the US$ 164 Million from its development finance partners required to improve the Railways’ efficiency”. Other projects to be undertaken include the replacement of 70Kms of the Railway line along the Mombasa Nairobi section.

 

Ondego said the tender was advertised last year. It was followed by an invitation to 21 contractors both from Kenya and Uganda.  Out of the 21, 12 turned up for the site inspection and 8 were shortlisted and multiplex won it out of the eight.

 

 Moses Bbosa, Managing Director of Multiplex Ltd said a thorough assessment of the requirements had been done and the company would embark on the rehabilitation immediately     ‘’ We recognize the importance of this contract to East Africa and will give it the necessary attention to ensure we complete the project within the given time frame.’’

 

Bbosa said work on the replacement of the nine culverts between is expected to start in 21 days after the signing of the contract and it will last 117 days of construction. Out the days of construction, for 14 days the train will use the Kisumu route.

 

Also present at the signing was, Jame Nyambari RVR general manager western, Duncan Onyango RVR chief Finance officer and Kyobe Richard, technical director, Multiplex Uganda limited.  The event took place in the offices of RVR Railway in Kampala, Nasser Road.

 

Rift Valley Railways (RVR) is the Kenya-Uganda concessionaire operating freight and passenger rail services in Kenya and Uganda on an exclusive basis. The company was founded in 2006 and has been granted a 25 year mandate to operate railway services on 2,000 kilometers of track linking the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya with the interiors of both Kenya and Uganda, including Kampala.