Last May 18, Uganda launched a tender for the construction and operation of a new 95 km highway linking the capital Kampala with the eastern city of Jinja. The project is designed to reduce congestion on the existing aging road.

In its tender notice, the Uganda National Road Authority (UNRA) specified that the selected private concessionaire should “design, build, finance, operate and transfer the project to the government at the end of the concession period”.

The project, estimated at $1 billion, is part of the Northern Corridor, a highly important road network in East Africa. This road network links the port of Mombasa to a vast hinterland including Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Southern Sudan and East Democratic Republic of Congo.

For the record, European Union (EU), French Development Agency (AFD) and African Development Bank (AfDB) have already committed to financing the Kampala-Jinja expressway project.

Let’s note that President Yoweri Museveni’s government has been investing for several years in infrastructure projects, mostly financed by China, to revive the economy.