As government strives to boost transport services in the country, the Minister for Infrastructure Amb. Claver Gatete, provides an update on major transport projects that are currently underway.

The New Times was part of a media interaction with the minister who fielded questions on the state of infrastructure projects related to transport.

Improving transport is one of the national ambitions under the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1), a Seven Year Government Programme.

The strategy seeks to improve rural and urban transport as part of ways to accelerate sustainable urbanisation to 35 per cent by 2024.

Excerpts below:

Road transport

Many roads including major ones that connect Rwanda to neighbouring countries have been rehabilitated.

Kagitumba-Rusumo Road, which is a big well-built modern road has been rehabilitated and we are going to install street lights along this road to ensure safety of passengers.

As we would like to ensure that goods transit through Kigali city to other areas, there is the road Ngoma-Nyanza which will be partly funded by a loan from Japanese government while the other part will be funded by World Bank.

Minister of Infrastructure Claver Gatete said that a number of Transport Infrastructure was under construction. File.

This means that, for example, trucks coming from Tanzania to Burundi will use this road instead of passing through Kigali city.

It is in the same development that trucks using Northern Corridor way from Mombasa-Kampala-Kagitumba to DRC Congo will now be using the road Kagitumba-Rukomo-Base without necessarily passing through Kigali City.

Indeed this road from Base to Rukomo will be completed soon and the part from Rukomo-Nyagatare is also being fast-tracked and we will also build the other from Nyagatare to Rwempasha and Muyanja.

We are also going to start the other one from Nyagatare , Muvumba to Nyabwishongezi.

The road Huye-Kibeho is also progressing at fast speed and the road Huye-Nyamagabe-Kitabi is also being refined and all roads will have street lights.

The road from Kicukiro to Bugesera at Nyabarongo is being made wider to make it have four lanes and then six lanes from Nyabarongo towards Bugesera airport.

There will an alternative road from Masaka to Bugesera Airport so as to have different routes.

We are also greening the roads in Kigali city. We have started with the road from Kanombe airport to City centre which will have been completed ahead of CHOGM meeting.

Proposed airport in Bugesera

In terms of Qatar taking a stake of 60 per cent in the airport of Bugesera, that one is signed. We are soon to start signing concession agreement and works are continuing already despite at slower pace.

There are other activities. REG is working on electricity from Mamba, Rwabusoro- Rilima. The electricity from Rusumo comes to the area before to other areas. So we will have like three different ways of supplying electricity to airport.

The water and IT systems are also being fixed to ensure access of the services at the airport.

The first phase to be completed by 2022 will have capacity to accommodate seven million passengers.

The airport had to be redesigned to make it modern.

Isaka-Kigali Standard Gauge Railway project

Isaka-Kigali Project is an agreement that has been there for long where we want the central corridor and Northern corridor to complement each other.

The Central corridor is from Dar es Salaam, Isaka to Rusumo and to Kigali.

We had to bring in another stakeholder so that it becomes the bigger project. In other words to have it from Tanzania, Rwanda and to DRC which we found more interesting.

Now we are three partners on that central corridor project. Initially when the studies had been done and we wanted to move from Isaka to Rusomo and from Rusumo to Kigali.

From Rusumo to Kigali it is about $1.3 billion. We had to negotiate with Tanzania how to do this. We had also to involve African Development Bank so that they can help us in terms of mobilizing not only resources but also bringing in the private sector element. So that the government will not foot the bill alone.

 We are discussing and soon we are now working on a date so that we can be able to put all details together. There are many private sector that are really interested such as in grid operating and transfer, others to buy stake into it. We believe that by end of March this year we will have been able to give a clearer picture.

As we speak Tanzania has already started construction from Dar es Salaam, Morogoro to Isake.

Maritime transport

We are going to build four ports, from Rusizi to Rubavu districts where boats will be docking from.

 The big boats are on the way coming for use to improve waterway transport.

Background:

Officials at RTDA said that the first phase of constructing the ports will have been completed by 2021 in the five districts neighboring Lake Kivu.

It is expected that by April this year, a boat with capacity to transport 30 passengers and 3 tonnes of goods will be available while another boat with capacity of transporting 150 passengers and 10 tonnes of goods will be available by the end of this year.

The first phase of the project will cost Rwf11 billion for the construction of two ports.

According to the Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA), there will be three major ports with a capacity of about 1.5 million passengers per year, projected to reach 2.8 million by 2036.

A smaller port, the fourth planned port, in Karongi District will start with a capacity of about 300,000 passengers per year by 2020 and 400,000 passengers by 2036.

The port maximum cargo handling capacity is 580,000 tonnes, while the minimum is 270,000 tonnes.