By Jako David Waluluka & Barbra Zeka
Indefatigable transport economist Benon Kajuna, has replaced David Musoke Bulega, as the new managing director of the Uganda Railways Cooperation.
The appointment of Mr. Kajuna, bringing an end to the reign of Mr. Bulega, who has been serving as acting managing director for the past two years.
Kajuna, was appointed by the URC board of directors following a series of interviews conducted last year. Until recently , Mr. Kajuna , who was sworn in on Friday , has been serving as the director Transport in the Ministry of Works and Transport.
Mr Kajuna holds a Master of Business Administration from the Eastern and Southern African Management Institute (ESAMI) and a Masters in Economic Policy Management from Makerere University.
He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. He has 30 years of experience in transport planning and management at National, Regional and International levels, institutional turnaround and sustainable development.
His expertise extends to strategic planning, project management, railway development, operations and management, cementing his status as a leader in transport management and innovation.
Mr. Kajuna comes at a time when the government is embarking on fully revamping the railway transport, as part of the solution to traffic jams and bulk goods transportation from Kisumu and Mombasa ports.
History of URC:
The Uganda Railway was named after its ultimate destination and its entire original kilometre (660 mi) length lies in present day Kenya. Construction began at the port city of Mombasa in British East Africa in 1896 and finished at the line’s terminus, Kisumu, on the Eastern shore of Lake Victoria in 1901.
The MGR Network in Uganda was mostly laid out between 1920s and 1960s to link the interior of Uganda and Kenya with Indian Ocean port of Mombasa in Kenya.
In 2006, the Governments of Uganda and Kenya decided to jointly concession out the assets of the two representative countries’ Railway Corporations to a private consortium in order to improve on the efficiency of their Railway systems.
The RVR consortium was established to manage the railways of Kenya and Uganda. Due to poor performance of the RVR i.e. defaulting on key concession obligations like payment of concession fees, maintenance of conceded asses and growing rail freight volumes, the concession was dissolved and URC tool charge of the railway operations in a bid to revamp the railway structure in Uganda.
