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Tanzania has announced a bid to construct a railway network at the cost of US$ 15bn. this is according to Tanzania transport Minister Mr. Samuel Sitta. The Minister said that this will constitute the largest single project to be undertaken by the country since independence.

The railway project will see Dar connected to Rwanda and Burundi through a 2,561 km standard gauge railway line. This will be constructed at US$ 8bn.

As part of the larger plan, other two railway lines will be constructed to hook Dar es Salaam to the coal, iron ore and soda ash mining regions in the South and North, which will spend US$ 7bn.

The railway network will see Tanzania compete with Kenya, which is rehabilitating the Mombasa port and undertaking a lot of other infrastructure projects to open itself to more business. Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda are also planning on a connection via a railway network.

Powering East Africa is one of the series of the Powering Africa program under U.S. The latter seeks to increase power generation and supply in the continent.

The 2015 Powering East Africa conference, which took place from 25-27th this month at the Windsor Golf and Country Club, Nairobi, Kenya was a total success as it saw challenges of opening up East Africa’s power sector for investment being addressed and solutions being given.

The Nairobi event saw convergence of 100 senior level decision-makers and investors. The Powering East Africa 2015 event was designed to discuss how to break transmission deadlock and open up East Africa’s powering sector for more ventures.

A number of topics were discussed at the Powering East Africa 2015 event, among them the critical role transmission must play in East Africa’s industrialization, the role of power utilities, how best to overcome financing obstacles, and how the cost of regional borrowing can be lessened by unlocking the transmission deadlock.