The East Africa Community is finalising plans to develop a multi-million-dollar highway linking Arusha and Mombasa via Moshi and Voi, to enhance the growing intra-trade in the region. The existing road, from Moshi to Voi, is in a shambles.

With the near completion of the $200 million Arusha-Athi River highway finally, the EAC has turned its attention to the ambitious project of upgrading the Arusha-Moshi-Taveta-Voi-Mombasa highway.

The project, whose pre-investment studies are close to completion, will cost an estimated $560 million. The African development Bank has granted nearly $300 million towards the important highway.

The EAC Secretariat is currently seeking ways on how to raise the additional $260 million to implement the project.

The intra–EAC trade has almost doubled from $2.2 billion in 2005 to $4.1 billion in 2010, meaning that the region will need a better road network to satisfy demand for transport.

EAC Secretary General Dr Richard Sezibera, who was in Tokyo recently, says EAC had fruitful talks with senior officials of the Japanese government with regard to providing financial assistance for the Arusha-Holili-Voi section of the highway.

The road, which passes through Holili border town, would be upgraded to a four lane modern highway between Arusha and Moshi.
The EAC principal civil engineer Hosea Nyangweso says that Arusha-Moshi-Holili-Taveta-Voi road was one of the major road projects to receive priority in EAC within the framework of regional integration.

Mr Nyangweso said that the highway will serve as an important link but is currently in a very poor state but once completed, landlocked partner states would access the port of Mombasa easily.

Already under construction is the 24-km Mwatate-Voi section, which is the last section of the proposed EAC project joining it to the Nairobi-Mombasa highway.

“The construction of 24-km Mwatate-Voi section started last June, and it is a 24-month project financed by the Kenya government to the tune of $19.2 million,” Mr Nyangweso told The EastAfrican in a telephone interview.

According to Mr Nyanweso, despite the section being part of the EAC proposed project, the Kenyan government last year requested the EAC to allow it to undertake the construction on its own in a bid to fast-track its completion after rioting businessmen barricaded it at Voi for hours, complaining of its bad state.

The riots caused a multi-million-dollar loss to transporters on the Mombasa-Nairobi highway at Voi.

Source: The East African