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Rehabilitation of Arusha-Athi River road set to start soon
2008-03-06 09:52:19
By Correspondent Emmanuel Chacha, Mwanza
Rehabilitation of the Arusha-Namanga-Athi River road, which is being implemented under the East Africa Community (EAC), is to commence soon on both sides of the Tanzania-Kenya border following a green light from the African Development Bank, one of the main sponsors of the project.
EAC Secretary Ambassador Juma Mwapachu revealed this yesterday at a retreat of EAC permanent secretaries where he said that project mobilisation on the Kenyan side had already started.
The project is to cost USD137m as a loan to both Tanzania and Kenya.
``With this development, a suitable date for the official launch of this project by the EAC heads of state will be decided when the contractors on both sides have fully mobilised,`` he said.
He said last year EAC signed grant agreements with ADB amounting to USD15m to support various projects, including regional components of the EAC Trade and Transportation Facilitation Project.
Mwapachu explained that under the project feasibility studies and detailed engineering designs for the Arusha-Holili-Voi road and Malindi-Horohoro- Tanga road were in progress at a cost of USD5.3m from ADB.
He disclosed that ADB had basically agreed to extend the project from Tanga to Saadan and Bagamoyo in Coast Region.
``I am happy to report to you that the secretariat has fulfilled all the pre-disbursement requirements for these grants and implementation of the requisite activities has commenced,`` he said.
He said ADB had provided USD1.5m for procurement consultancy services and execution of the study for the 10-year EAC Roads Development Programme.
The diplomat further said that next month there would be an EAC ministerial visit to China focusing on support for infrastructure projects and that the EAC secretariat would ask China to support pre-investment studies and funding for the construction.
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