Revamp the railway as soon as possible.
Jun 04, 2014
Economies thrive on transportation and being that the key means of transport are road, air, water and railway. Unfortunately in Uganda, the latter is not utilised and this has greatly affected the Uganda’s economy.
trueBy Kizza .B. Kasozi
Economies thrive on transportation and being that the key means of transport are road, air, water and railway. Unfortunately in Uganda, the latter is not utilised and this has greatly affected the Uganda’s economy.
What is puzzling is that the British colonists left the railway operating and operated a lot more in the post-independence periods of the 60s, 70s and early 90s.
So why doesn’t it operate today? It is a question many Ugandans ask themselves, especially those who have travelled and are informed.
Although the Government has previously tried to revive the railway network by involving the UPDF and also luring some investors into it, all those efforts are yet to achieve fruits.
A deliberate industrialisation effort requires steering the economy to middle income status and this automatically need a cheaper means of transport, which is the railway network.
Am not disputing the current development of the roads but it has facilitated the monopoly of road transport and this is affecting the common man who earns peanuts for a living.
At least as far as I know, when taxi and bus fares go up, they never come down and this affects price levels in the whole economy as all the factors of production will raise their prices to make a profit.
Western economies that are greatly industrialised greatly relied more on railways transport before even the invention of the vehicles.
Hence my call to the Government is to refocus on transportation alternatives that are cheaper for the majority poor and that automatically has to be the railway system. Minus the railway agriculture won’t profit for the majority farmers and inflation will always bite.
The Government has to direct efforts to revamping the railway network to provide cheaper means of transport for the population which is line with poverty eradication that the president is championing.
The writer is the president of the Uganda National Economic Salvation Association. UNESA
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