Secret behind Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda deal

East African Community Secretary-General Richard Sezibera addresses a regional media conference in Kampala yesterday

The Coalition of the Willing, which rocked the East African Community in recent months, was triggered by fear over competition for economic dominance in the region, The Citizenhas learnt.

Reports from Kampala hint that Tanzania’s aggressive ambition to invest in infrastructure, especially the construction of a Chinese funded multibillion-dollar port project, caused panic, particularly in Kenya, which has dominated the region because of its Mombasa port.

The revelation comes as Kenya yesterday launched the construction of the Sh22 trillion 1,250-km Mombasa-Malaba railway line in a ceremony attended by four presidents from the East African region.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday hosted presidents Yoweri Museveni (Uganda), Paul Kagame (Rwanda) and Salva Kiir (South Sudan) in the ceremony. The line to be built by the China Communications Construction Company will run from Mombasa to Malaba, Kampala and then Kigali and later to Juba.

Construction work will be undertaken in three phases with Phase One starting from Mombasa to Nairobi, followed by Nairobi-Malaba and Kisumu in Phase Two and Malaba-Kisumu to Kampala in Phase Three. The projected completion date is 2016.

 But as the multitrillion shillings railway launching took place in Mombasa yesterday, details that caused the coalition of the willing emerged showing that Kenya was alarmed by Tanzania’s $11 billion modern port project and plans to revive the central railway.

According to Uganda’s government owned newspaper, New Vision, at the heart of the struggle between the ‘coalition of the willing’ on one hand against Tanzania and Burundi on the other, is the competition for economic dominance between Kenya and Tanzania to control the transport artery of movement of goods into the interior.

East Africa’s largest two economies, Tanzania and Kenya, are in a simultaneous race for infrastructure development with support from China, to spur their economies. There are ongoing works in port expansion, setting up economic processing zones, agriculture road railway networks, building satellite cities, minerals as well as oil and gas explorations.

Both countries have strategic access to the Indian Ocean and are gateways for international trade for the landlocked East African Community neighbours. Kenya controls what is known as the northern corridor route linking Uganda, Rwanda, Ethiopia, South Sudan and eastern DR Congo. Tanzania on the other hand, controls the central development corridor for Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and additionally, eastern DR Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi.

But the central corridor has an added advantage with access to more landlocked countries than the northern corridor. China and Tanzania signed a framework to construct $11bn port in Bagamoyo, which is set to become Africa’s largest port with a capacity to handle 20 million cargo containers a year.

This will undoubtedly overtake Mombasa port of Kenya, presently considered to be the EAC’s largest port with a capacity to handle 800,000 containers annually, The New Vision reported.

 According to the paper, Kenya alarmed by the growing Tanzania’s economic muscles, decided to consolidate potential clients in the region by also embarking on massive infrastructureprojects.