Kenya and Tanzania are caught in a head-to-head race to become the
preferred regional transport hub amid massive expansion projects in sea ports,
connecting railway and road networks.
Tanzania on Monday said it plans to spend Sh1.3 trillion ($14.2
billion) to construct a new rail network in the next five years, financed with
commercial loans as the country aims to become a regional transport hub.
Tanzania, like its neighbour Kenya, wants to capitalise on a long
coastline and upgrade existing rickety railways and roads to serve growing
economies in the land-locked heart of Africa.
Oil and gas discoveries in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have turned
the East African region into an exploration hotspot, but transport
infrastructure in those countries has suffered from decades of
under-investment.
“This will be the single biggest project ever to be implemented by
the Tanzanian government since our country’s independence,” Reuters quoted
Transport Minister Samuel Sitta as having said in a statement seen on Monday,
referring to the year 1961.
The projects include constructing a 2,561 km standard gauge
railway connecting the port at the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam to
Tanzania’s land-locked neighbours, Rwanda and Burundi at a cost of $7.6 billion
(Sh700 billion), Mr Sitta said.
Two additional lines, to be built at a combined cost of $6.6
billion (Sh608 billion), would connect Dar es Salaam to the coal, iron ore and
soda ash mining areas in the south and northern parts of the country, he said.
Tanzania targets to increase the capacity of its main port to 28
million tonnes a year by 2020 from the 14.6 million tonnes it handled in the
financial year 2013/14.
The grand infrastructure expansion plans by Tanzania could help
revamp the status of the port of Dar es Salaam which eyes to outwit the rival
Kenyan port of Mombasa.
The two ports are the main gateways to the East African region and
also service markets in South Sudan and the Great Lakes region, handling key
items including fuel, consumer goods and other imports as well as exports of
tea and coffee from the region.
Kenya is also constructing a Sh327 billion-609 kilometre new
standard gauge railway line between Mombasa and Nairobi to boost the movement
of cargo from the port and boost the countries competitiveness.
