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EAC due to adopt harmonious infrastructure programmes soon; Mwapachu

BY GEORGE KAGAME
Arusha


Lake Victoria conservation efforts are set to be boosted by the launch of the Basin Development master plan due soon by the East African Community, Juma Mwapachu the EAC Secretary General revealed this week while touring several Kenyan organizations and institutions connected to the integration process of the community. Speaking from Nairobi Mwapachu said a study on the proposed EAC-Lake Victoria basin development master plan would greatly solve infrastructural connections in East Africa.
He said the plan was targeting a regional framework on road networks throughout the EAC, water transport, tourism and agricultural sectors. He added that the infrastructural projects were also contained in the Lake Victoria Basin Commission. Earlier President Paul Kagame announced during the June 2008 Leon H. Sullivan conference in Arusha that Rwanda and Tanzania were involved in negotiations for a railway line connecting Kigali to the port city of Dar Salaam, he said that the railway line was part of the East African Infrastructure project to be adopted by the EAC leaders due 2010. Lake Victoria Basin development master plan, Mwapachu said will accelerate East Africa’s ambition of becoming a regional economic development and growth zone, he added that the size of Lake Victoria would have a big economic impact if proper policy measures were adopted this is because Mwapachu added the lake is the second largest fresh water body in the world has a gross economic potential in the order of USD 5 billion. Regional infrastructure plans currently underway include the ongoing ring road around the Lake, which is part of the East African Road Network Project, with feeders leading to the shores of Lake Victoria with tourist facilities, hotels, lodges, cruise ships as well as strategic industries throughout East Africa.