China to train Ugandan military engineers for SGR construction

KAMPALA, Aug. 24– A team of ten Ugandan military engineers are
scheduled to leave for China where they will be trained in railway
construction.

Brig. Richard Karemire, Ugandan military spokesperson, told Xinhua in an
interview on Tuesday that the team will go to Hebei Province for a
three-month special training in construction of a Standard Gauge Railway
(SGR).The training is part of the memorandum of understanding reached
between China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), the company contracted to
construct Uganda’s SGR, and the military.”We welcome a strategic partner
that provides skills to the army. We are a productive force committed to
the social transformation of our country,” said Karemire.In the memorandum
of understanding, CHEC also agreed to partner to build a polytechnic
institute in the eastern border district of Tororo.

Ugandan is in the process of starting the construction of a SGR that will
connect it to a similar one in neighboring Kenya.The SGR will connect
landlocked Uganda to the Kenyan seaport of Mombasa, reducing the cost of
transportation to the coast.According to experts, once the construction is
complete, the number of days it takes to transport goods from Mombasa to
the Ugandan capital Kampala will be reduced to two from the current 14
days.Kenya has already begun operating the SGR linking its capital Nairobi
to Mombasa. – XINHUA