KIGALI—Rwanda has announced plans to develop rail links to Indian Ocean ports through Tanzania because they were cheaper and shorter than the route transiting Kenya, says Claver Gatete, Rwanda minister of finance and economic planning.
Gatete told reporters on Sunday that the Tanzania route was cheaper and would not take long to be completed compared to the Kenya route.
In 2013, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda agreed to link up to the Kenyan port of Mombasa along a standard-gauge railway estimated to cost $13 billion. Studies done by member states in the six-nation East African Community (EAC) showed that the Tanzanian option would cost Rwanda about $800 to $900 million dollars while the Kenyan one would go for $1 billion, according to the Rwanda ministry of East African Community Affairs report. READ MORE
