Oil discoveries in Kenya and Uganda and gas finds in Tanzania have
turned east Africa into an exploration hotspot for oil firms 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,” Transport Minister
Samuel Sitta said in a statement issued on Sunday, referring to the year 1961.
Sitta said the railway network would meet the huge demand for the
transportation of cargo to land-locked neighbouring countries, including the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda as well as
domestic needs.
The projects include constructing a 2,561 km (1,536 miles)
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, Sitta said.
Two additional lines, to cost $6.6 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.
