The four Locomotives were developed by South African firm Grindrod
The four newly imported railway locomotives that were brought in September 2021 by a South African firm Grindrod at a tune of Shs48 billion are currently grounded, the Parliamentary Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (COSASE) has discovered .
The locomotives which have a haulage capacity of up to 1500 tons and a shelf line of about 40 years were procured as part of ongoing efforts to revamp the Railway sector.
However, the committee chaired by Nakawa West MP, Joel Ssenyonyi was surprised to learn that the imported railway locomotives cannot be utilized by the country over unavailable railway line plates to accommodate their movement.
The committee learnt this through a team of the Uganda Railway Workers union led by the union president James Akech
The Secretary General of Uganda Railways Workers Union Victor Byemaro revealed that the locomotives are ill suited for the nature of Uganda’s rails.
He said that since they arrived, upto now they are packed in the workshop.
The Union’s President James Oketch who is a railway technician, said that the locomotives are totally incompatible with the railway tracks and technology currently used in Uganda.
The group told the committee that the Engineering department at Uganda Railways corporation was not consulted at the time of procuring these grounded locomotives.
Ssenyonyi said that the committee will summon the Uganda Railways corporation management to explain this irregular procurement which is causing a financial loss of Shs48billion to the country.
It should be noted that Parliament in May 2021 approved a loan request to a tune of Shs1.403Trn by Uganda Railway Corporation (URC) to rehabilitate the Kampala-Malaba railway line despite warnings that the cost of the project had been exaggerated.
According to the loan request, Government intended to borrow up to Euro 216.71 million about Shs929.851Bn from the African Development Fund, Euro84.41 million from the African Development Bank (Shs362.182Bn) and Euro25.9841 million (Shs11.492Bn from the Corporate Internationalization Fund of Spain for the refurbishment of the Kampala-Malaba meter gauge railway project.
Syda Bbumba, Chairperson Parliament’s National Economy Committee that processed the loan request asked Parliament to approve the loan arguing that if the old rail line is rehabilitated, it will improve time of moving from Kampala to Kyengera from the current two hours to just 20minutes.
