Last week Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni made a state visit to Kenya and agreed in principle with President William Ruto to extend the SGR and the KPC pipeline to Kampala.
This cooperation should be highly profitable for Kenya.
It was always a mystery why the Uganda National Oil Company was blocked from working with the Kenya Pipeline Company on the spurious grounds that it was not licensed to sell fuel in Kenya when it never wanted to sell fuel here.
Now KPC will earn extra revenue by pumping UNOC fuel to Kisumu. Potentially it can earn even more from Congo and South Sudan if it extends the pipeline to Kampala.
The proposal to jointly extend the Standard Gauge Railway to Kampala also makes good sense. Today the SGR is a white elephant as it only reaches Naivasha.
There is no fundamental difference for central African transporters between collecting cargo from Naivasha or Mombasa. But if freight reaches Kampala, it will be a no-brainer for Ugandan, Congolese and South Sudanese importers to use the SGR.
Extending the SGR and KPC pipeline to Kampala will be mutually profitable as well as enhancing regional cooperation.
Quote of the day: "I'm a military man, I did what I did only because my country had to be saved from tribalism and feudalism. If I failed, it was only because I was betrayed."
Mengistu Haile Mariam
The Ethiopian president fled his country on May 21, 1991
