KAMPALA – The management of the Uganda Railways Corporation has urged fuel importers to use trains so as to reduce the number of cargo truck drivers entering the country.
Engineer Charles Kateeba, the managing director Uganda Railways Corporation, railway transport is convenient.
He explained that majority of the fuel trucks entering the country belong to individual importers who buy fuel from the new fuel Jetty in Kisumu operated by the Kenya Pipeline Company which pumps fuel from Mombasa to Kisumu.
He said rather than sending individual trucks, the fuel can be loaded onto the Uganda Railways tanks to move Railway and Ships to the national fuel reserves in Jinja and a private one under construction in Kawuku along Entebbe road where they can pick it from.
“Better still, we can deliver it to the Vivo Energy and Total who have railways siddings and they pick from there using road transport. The minister will tomorrow (today) present a paper to cabinet where we are requesting for Shs9.5billion for getting extra locomotives and support our operations inline with Covid 19 demand,” he said.
Mr Gilbert Assi, the Managing Director Vivo Energy Uganda, said as long as Uganda Railways Corporation can add more wagons and locomotives to their fleet and they have the standard operating procedures in place, they would prefer railway transport because other countries are using it.
“If they can avail enough wagons and locomotives, as a company we have no problem as long as they have enough safety measures because I know for a fact that other countries use Railway to move their fuel,” he said.
