Roundup: East African nations mull fast-tracking development

Senior government officials and the private sector in the East African region are meeting in the Ugandan capital Kampala to discuss key projects that will fast track development.

The officials who started a two-day meeting on Monday under the Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit are from Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Ethiopia and host Uganda.

The meeting precedes the ministers and the heads of state meetings that will be held later in the week.

The Northern Corridor is the transport corridor that links the East African Community (EAC) landlocked countries of Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan with the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa. The corridor also serves northern Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

Back in 2013, Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Kenya's Uhuru Kenyatta held an initial meeting to discuss how to cooperate and speed up development in the region.

Their concern initially was the long time cargo to and from Mombasa took to reach its destination, infrastructure development and the cost of doing business in the region.

Over the years, the scope and number of countries has increased.

Uganda's ministry of foreign affairs in a statement on Monday said the forthcoming meetings will review the status of implementation of the Northern Corridor Integration Projects since the last Summit held in December 2015 in Kigali, Rwanda.

These projects are in the areas of infrastructure development, energy, information technology and socio-economic development. The projects are shared out by the countries to enable their fast-tracking.

Uganda coordinates the Standard Gauge Railway, information communication and technology infrastructure, oil refinery development, fast-tracking political federation and financing.

Kenya is coordinating power generation, transmission and interconnectivity; crude oil pipeline development, refined petroleum products pipeline development, commodities exchange, human resource capacity building.

Rwanda coordinates immigration, tourism, trade, labor and services, single customs territory, defense cooperation, peace and security cooperation and air space management.

Since the initial meeting, there are successes that have been achieved.

Among the successes include, a one network area, use of national identity cards as travel documents; implementation of East Africa Tourist Visa; launch of the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway and waiver of work permit fees.

Under the Single Customs Territory-Cargo tracking system, the cost of doing business has reduced. Days of cargo trucks from Mombasa has also reduced to 4-5 days from Mombasa to Kampala from 16 days, Rwanda to 8 days from 22 days. Endit