Museveni in Mombasa for infrastructure summit

Vision reporter  

President Yoweri Museveni is in the Kenyan Port city of Mombasa for the second Infrastructure summit of Heads of State and Government which will also be attended by Paul Kagame of Rwanda and the host, Uhuru Kenyatta.

The meeting due to open this morning at Whitesands Hotel in Mombasa is a follow-up of the first meeting held in Entebbe in June. It’s aimed at accelerating regional infrastructure development to hasten socio-economic development in the region.  Another summit is scheduled for Kigali in October.

To ensure faster implementation, responsibilities have been shared with Uganda committing to lead the railway development and political federation agenda, Rwanda to lead on the single customs territory, single tourist visa and use of East African community national identity card projects while Kenya is to spearhead the implementation of the oil pipeline and electricity generation.

The Presidents while in Mombasa are also scheduled to launch of a Ksh5.6 billion ($66.7 million) Berth number 19 at Mombasa port, the space where ships dock or anchor as they are offloaded or loaded.

The new berth is expected to raise the port’s capacity by 33 per cent. The 240 metre long new berth is expected to boost container handling operations and increase capacity at the Port. On Tuesday, President Museveni launched the container Freight station and later had a meeting with the management of the Uganda Property Holdings and Unifreight.