President Yoweri Museveni has a launched a modern water transport system to be used to transport imported fuel.
Museveni on Thursday launched the facility owned by Lake Victoria Logistics, a company which aims to reduce the cost of transporting fuel in Uganda.
The statement from State House said other countries like Rwanda, Burundi, and DRC would use the same vessel to transport fuel from Kenya through the region’s biggest lake Victoria.
Museveni expressed optimism that fuel would now be cheap since the cost of transport had reduced by more than half.
“I’m very happy about this move. Mahathi you have helped us. I don’t know how much cheaper it is because you didn’t give us the figures, but I imagine that it is much cheaper than it was,” he said.
“I’m glad the proprietors and also the ministers have assured the country about the zero chance of pollution of petroleum in the freshwater lake, it’s good that it has been ruled out completely,” Museveni added.
The Minister of Works and Transport, Gen. Katumba Wamala, said the project would save the country various expenses, especially on roads.
“Our country being landlocked, we have been relying on and continue to rely heavily on road transport for the transportation of our cargo including fuel and petroleum products. This road transport comes along with a number of costs such as high road maintenance costs, fuel adulteration, road accidents, among others,” the Minister said.
“This effort will greatly reduce the high maintenance costs, traffic congestion on our roads and the frequent associated road accidents,” he added.
According to the proprietors, their facility also has a fuel storage capacity of 70 million litres.
The Minister of Energy and Mineral Development, Ruth Nankabirwa, thanked Mahathi Infra for training and offering technical skills to Ugandans working under the project.
She said this project is a significant milestone in Uganda’s energy sector and it’s a testament to the country’s commitment to diversity fuel import routes and promoting economic growth.
The board Chairman of Mahathi Infra Uganda, Dr. Steve Mainda said the transportation of fuel in Uganda has been limited to road transport which has worked for many years but with some challenges and inefficiencies.
He however noted that with the coming of Lake Victoria Logistics company, such inefficiencies will be no more.
“The vision of this project is to establish a more efficient and sustainable solution to decongest the roads, ease border post traffic and reduce turn-round time and cost of moving fuel from Mombasa to this place. We have invested $100m in this project,” he said.
