 |
MARITIME ORGANISATION OF WEST AND CENTRAL AFRICA (MOWCA) Sub-Regional Sectoral Integration - for cost effective maritime/transit transport services, high on safety, security, low on pollution |
        |
|
 |
|
| home |
Uganda: U.S. $200 Million Inland Port On Course
|
|||
|
|||
April 2009 Kampala — Construction of the $200 million Tororo Inland Port is going ahead as planned.
Officials at Great Lakes Ports Uganda Limited said the project will be carried out in three phases. The earthworks alone, budgeted at $34 million, have already commenced at the eastern Uganda border town of Malaba.
Sources said the project had delayed by two years due to opposition from freighters. They were, however, optimistic those opposing the project were 'just chasing the wind,' as no beneficiary stakeholders were complaining. Last Thursday, a judge of the Commercial Court Division, Justice Anup Singh Choudry, adjourned for the second time an application by Great Lakes Ports against the Attorney General and others to June 23, 2009. Justice Choudry asked Enos Tumusiime the lawyer for Uganda Inland Port Limited to file proper applications for contempt of court after Tumusiime told court that Great Lakes had defied a court order and gone ahead to construct the inland dry port at Tororo instead of giving way for another planned inland port at Namanve in Greater Kampala. Legal sources said Tumusiime had made a faulty extraction of an order by the same court in an earlier ruling. On October 15, 2007 Justice Yorokamu Bamwine had ordered that the contract for the construction of Tororo Inland Port won by Great Lakes CFS Limited be cancelled and the competent authority, the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA) proceeds with the tender process according to the law. Thereafter, the PPDA took up the matter and when the tender was put up, only Great Lakes Ports Uganda Limited which was its new name participated and won the bid. It was after this second winning of tender that Uganda Inland Port made applications calling for halt of the new tender. Officials at Great Lakes last week intimated they will go ahead with the construction as no-one has right to stop them from developing their land. Last Thursday, Tumusiime failed to convince the judge that there was nothing new in the situation after Bamwine's judgment and that Great Lakes had delayed to put in the applications, going beyond the 10 days ordered. Choudry observed that holidays which fell in those 10 days had to be compensated. |
|||