Bilateral agreement between Kenya and Uganda on a seamless Standard Gauge Railway system signed Wednesday in the capital Nairobi.
Hon Minister of Works, Eng Monica Azuba Ntege signed on behalf of Government of Uganda while her counterpart, Cabinet secretary James Macharia signed on behalf of Kenya.
In June 2013, the first infrastructure Summit of the Presidents of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda  held in Uganda put in place mechanisms for fast tracking the development of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) system linking Rwanda and Uganda to the port of Mombasa to enable faster socio-economic transformation of the East and Central Africa Economies.
These led to the signing of the Tripartite Agreement for the development and operation of a Standard Gauge Railway between Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali with a branch lines to Kisumu (Kenya) and Pakwach/Gul-Nimule (Uganda) between the Republics of Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda in August 2013.
The Republic of South Sudan acceded to the agreement in May 2014 extending the line to Juba.
To enable development and operationalisation of a Seamless Railway network from Mombasa to Kigali and Juba, the  Summit of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects vide the 3rd Joint Communiqué directed the Partner States to develop a Standard Gauge Railway Protocol for the development and operations of the Standard Gauge Railways.
The Protocol was signed by Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan and Rwanda in May 2014.
The overall objective is to jointly develop and operate a modern, fast, reliable, efficient and high capacity railway transport system as a seamless single railway operation among the Parties.
Source: The Insider

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