Museveni in Dar as Uganda eyes alternative routes to sea

President Yoweri Museveni is in Dar es Salaam to inspect improvements on Tanzania’s main port so that it can be used as an option for Uganda’s exports and imports.

According to Augustine Mahiga, the Tanzania Minister for Foreign Affairs,  Museveni’s visit to the Dar es Salaam port was to encourage Ugandan businessmen to resume using the port as an alternative to the Mombasa port in Kenya. Museveni is set to inspect improvements at the port that serves landlocked countries of Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mahiga said Tanzanian President John Magufuli invited Museveni to visit when they met in Addis Ababa during the African Union heads of state and government summit last month.

Museveni and Magufuli will also hold talks aimed at cementing bilateral relations and cooperation in business, energy, transportation and good neighborhood.

Uganda last year opted out of the planned Kenyan route for oil, and went for the Hoima-Tanga pipeline route as the best option citing least tariffs to transporting the crude to the coast for export.

The pipeline is to traverse about 1450km from Hoima in western Uganda to the Tanzania port of Tanga on the Indian Ocean coast. Total E&P Uganda will construct the $4 billion crude oil pipeline.

The pipeline is expected to transport 230,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Tanga for shipment to the international market.

Improvements are also ongoing to improve the rail route from the Tanzanian ports to the rest of East Africa.