UGANDA: Why Museveni destroyed Uganda Railways Corporation

WHY MUSEVENI DESTROYED UGANDA RAILWAYS CORPORATION

CHANGE OF GUARDS - Construction of the Uganda Railway started in 1896 at Mombasa.  It reached the shores of Lake Victoria in 1901, at Port Florence (now called Kisumu). The boundary for Uganda was shifted westwards to create the British Kenyan highland colonies. Once inside the Uganda territory,  the Uganda Railways extended to Kasese at the border with Congo and the northern route went up to Pakwach on the White Nile. The railway system was managed as Uganda Railway (UR) until it was changed to Kenya-Uganda Railways (KUR). Later on, it became East Africa Railways & Harbors (EARH).  Eventually, it was known as East African Railways (EAR), and it remained so until 1977 when the EAC was abolished thus giving birth to the Uganda Railways Corporation (URC).  As a state corporation, it was fully responsible for all the operations, including the construction of new lines, management, maintenance, and the like.

The railway line was responsible for the economic growth of various regions of Uganda.  The central and Western route covered Tororo, Jinja, Kampala/Port Bell, Mityana, Mubende, Kamwenge and Kasese.  The Eastern and Northern route covered Mbale, Soroti, Lira, Gulu and Pakwach. It boosted production through ease of transport.  When Museveni took power in 1986, he found a fully functional URC.  Like was the case with other government corporations and agencies, he embarked on its systematic destruction.  He appointed Enos Tumusiime to oversee its total destruction.  He had two major reasons for destroying the URC.

Firstly, in  pursuit of his policy of impoverishing Ugandans, the URC couldn't survive.  For the western route, he wanted to develop Mbarara first as the only easy route to Kasese.  In the same regard, he deliberately delayed the completion of the Kampala-For Portal Road.  By the time the road was completed decades later, production in that region had declined tremendously as Ankole region and Mbarara in particular flourished.  Consequently, impoverished locals of the affected regions had sold their unproductive land and migrated to urban centres.  Secondly, he targeted the elimination of people from the northern and eastern regions who had traditionally dominated employment by such government corporations and URC in particular.

URC and its railway network completely collapsed and later its remains was concessioned to Rift Valley Railways (RVR). RVR continues to run the business to this day.
The concessioning of URC was done jointly with Kenya Railways (KR). RVR is the joint operator of the Ugandan and Kenyan railway concessions.  The scheme did not take off and that is when Museveni jumped into the idea of the Standard Guage Railway (SGR).

Here below, please get insights into some extracts from a piece that we ran on February 3, 2017 titled;
KENYA CINTINUES TO REAP BIG FROM MUSEVENI'S CRIMINAL DECEPTION

"..................Consequently, in 2013 he set off to manipulate his presumed underdogs, Rwanda and Kenya to enter into an unholy alliance dubbed Coalition of the Willing (COWI) comprised of Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya to the exclusion of Tanzania and Burundi.  COWI went ahead to initiate a raft of infrastructure, telecommunication, defence and tourism projects. It was under COWI that Museveni lured Kenya into signing the MOU over the oil pipeline and the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR).

Uganda was supposed to transport its crude oil through north-eastern Uganda, northern Kenya to the costal port of Lamu. Although Uganda and Kenya had signed an MOU in 2009 for the construction of the SGR from Mombasa to Kampala, it was not until in August 2013 under COWI that Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya signed a tripartite agreement for the construction of the SGR from Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali. The excited Kenya immediately embarked on construction of the SGR from Mombasa to Nairobi and as of now it has been completed and in October 2016 it launched the 2nd phase from Nairobi to Kisumu. On his part, Uganda which launched the Malaba-Kampala line in October 2014 has not yet commenced construction of the same.......

However, with the coming into office of President Magufuli in Tanzania, Rwanda shifted its focus from the Kampala route to the port of Dar Es Salaam before accusing Museveni of prioritising the rail to Juba instead of Kigali.  Rwanda buried its earlier differences with Tanzania under the Kikwete presidency.  In April 2016, Museveni opportunistically shifted the oil pipeline deal from Kenya to the Tanzanian port of Tanga."

After abandoning Kenya,  Museveni has instead been focusing on the SGR route from Dar-Es Salaam - Mwanza and by ship to Port Bell.  However, with the ongoing customs saga with Rwanda, he is once again shifting his focus on the Mombasa route.  His current scheming is driven by the need to economically outcompete Rwanda.  Without shame, yesterday he took a ride on the newly built SGR from Mombasa port to Nairobi.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM