Construction of Uganda’s highly-billed $120m (about Shs446b) Great Lakes dry land port at the Malaba border in Tororo District is yet to take off, 15 years after it was commissioned by President Museveni.
Mr Charles Ogema, a resident of Amoni Village in Malaba Town Council, who was 18 years old when Mr Museveni officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony in 2008, remembers the day with nostalgia.
“The President arrived dressed in a grey suit and later took time to speak to the residents and later to the members of the press,” he told the Monitor last Thursday.
The port, which was primed to sit on 200 acres, was to act as the sole warehouse for all Ugandan goods destined for Mariakani in Mombasa, Kenya.
Also, a hospital and school were to be constructed on the same land.
“We saw a lot of hope in the projects because we were seeing that several youth would get jobs and a general facelift in infrastructure,” Mr Ogema said.
Mr Peter Luswata, a pastor at the Malaba border, said the commissioning of the project by the President was not a highly-publicised event because some people were surprised by his arrival.
“But shortly after the commissioning, which was followed by the deployment of several dumper trucks to ferry materials to the site, businesses and property prices skyrocketed,” Mr Luswata said last Thursday.
He added: “For instance, the 50 by 100-foot plot of land which I sold at Shs17m the previous year, was resold at Shs170m following the commissioning of the project, while rent for commercial premises shot up.”
He said many businessmen and women from various parts of the country rushed to rent houses and tap into the opportunities that the port would bring.
Mr John Emoit, the LC1 chairman for Amoni Village in Malaba Town Council where the project was to be located, said residents were excited about the project because they were seeing close to 300,000 people securing direct employment.
Malaba border, on the Northern Corridor route, is the biggest entry border point for goods into the country and other Great Lakes states, including Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Mr George Obore, who was the LC3 chairman at the time, says the government needs to ensure that the project kicks off in the near future.
He said: “15 years down the road, the area has become a habitat for criminals as many youth have resorted to drug abuse and are using the vacant land to plot burglaries.”
Mr Obore explained further that since the project has failed to take off, it has caused clearing work to shift from Malaba to either Jinja or Kampala.
He said the people of Tororo District still yearn to see the project take off because it was going to provide the people of Malaba and Uganda, with up to one million direct and indirect jobs.
Mr Obore said, the proposed hospital and school would give Malaba a facelift in addition to providing services to the people.
Mr James Akileng, a trader at the Malaba border, said with the clearing of goods shifting to Mombasa, Jinja and Kampala, Malaba border has nearly become a ghost town because people who were doing business there have shifted to Busia.
Mr Andrew Orono, the Malaba Town Council chairman, said the project would bring huge revenue to the border town that would go a long way in improving service delivery.
Mr Edward Masaba, a resident of Malaba border, said the signposts and mark stones which were laid by President Museveni have since been removed by unscrupulous people.
URA explains
Mr Geoffrey Balamaga, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) manager of eastern Uganda, however, said the implementation of the single customs territory rendered the construction of the dry port at the Malaba border untenable.
“In 2014, we operationalised the single customs territory where importers clear their goods while still at the Port of Mombasa, and the policy to allow importers to warehouse their goods (at a warehouse of their choice) has reduced clearance work at the border,” Mr Balamaga said last Thursday.
As a result, Mr Balamaga said the construction of the dry land port at the Malaba border might be difficult.
