Musings From Abroad

Uganda embraces Turkish firm as it severs railway deal with Chinese firm, CHEC

Published

2 years ago

January 15, 2023

East African country, Uganda has ended its deal with Chinese firm China Harbour and Engineering Company Ltd (CHEC) to build a railway to the Kenyan border.

A senior government official made the revelation and hinted that the country is now considering a deal with a Turkish company.

Uganda 2015 signed an engineering, procurement, and construction contract with CHEC to develop the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project.

The 273-kilometer railway line, estimated to cost $2.2 billion, which will use the international standard rather than a narrower gauge sometimes used in the region.

The line is planned to link the capital Kampala and Uganda’s border with Kenya, where it is planned to link up with Kenya’s own standard gauge rail that runs to the Indian Ocean seaport of Mombasa.

According to a senior official in the ministry of works and transport project, the country is however said to be frustrated with China’s unwillingness to provide funding for the project and is now courting Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi to take up the job.

“One of the obligations under the contract with the Chinese was that they were supposed to help Uganda source financing which has really not come true,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The source revealed that Uganda in December wrote to the Chinese firm of its intentions to terminate the deal and the Chinese had so far not indicated any objection to the decision. Officials of CHEC were not immediately reachable for comment.

The source further revealed that the ministry had now focused on Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi for the completion of the rail project.

“So now the discussions are with Yapi Merkezi which has shown interest …there’s no contract with them yet, but there’s an MoU and things are moving fast.”

Commenting on the development, he told a news conference in Beijing, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China and Uganda had in the past jointly cooperated in railways, hydropower stations, highways, oil and gas development, and infrastructure construction.

“China and Uganda are comprehensive cooperative partners, and practical cooperation between the two countries is at the forefront of China-Africa cooperation,” Wenbin said.

Musings From Abroad

UN Security Council deliberates stance on Sudan war

Published

3 days ago

November 13, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

The UN Security Council is discussing a British-drafted resolution calling on Sudan’s warring parties to stop hostilities and permit safe, quick, and unimpeded assistance supplies across borders and front lines.

The world’s largest relocation crisis began in April 2023 when the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces engaged in a power battle ahead of a planned transfer to civilian administration.

Waves of ethnically motivated violence have resulted, with the RSF mostly to blame. The RSF has blamed the action on rogue actors and denies causing harm to civilians in Sudan. Two RSF generals were named last week by a Security Council committee in the first U.N. sanctions levied during the ongoing conflict.

“Nineteen months into the war, both sides are committing egregious human rights violations, including the widespread rape of women and girls,” Britain’s U.N. ambassador, Barbara Woodward, told reporters at the start of this month as Britain assumed the Security Council’s presidency for November.

“More than half the Sudanese population are experiencing severe food insecurity,” she said. “Despite this, the SAF and the RSF remain focussed on fighting each other and not the famine and suffering facing their country.”

According to diplomats, Britain wants to vote on the draft resolution as soon as possible. A resolution must receive nine votes or more to pass and not be vetoed by the United States, France, Britain, Russia, or China.

Nearly 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require aid, according to the U.N., since 11 million people have abandoned their homes and famine has spread to displacement camps. Of those, around 3 million have departed for other nations.

In its draft language, Britain “demands that the warring parties immediately cease hostilities” and “demands that the Rapid Support Forces immediately halt its offensives” throughout Sudan.

It also “calls on the parties to the conflict to allow and facilitate the full, safe, rapid, and unhindered crossline and cross-border humanitarian access into and throughout Sudan.”

Additionally, the draft urges that assistance deliveries continue to be made through the Adre border crossing with Chad “and stresses the need to sustain humanitarian access through all border crossings, while humanitarian needs persist, and without impediments.”

Sudanese authorities have permitted the U.N. and relief organisations to enter Darfur through the Adre border crossing for three months, ending in mid-November.

Musings From Abroad

South Africa worry Trump’s victory might affect climate fight

Published

6 days ago

November 10, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

South Africa’s environment minister has expressed concern about the potential effects of Donald Trump’s victory on climate change negotiations.

The demise of Germany’s coalition government this week and Trump’s election coincide with COP29 negotiations to address global warming, which experts credit for this year’s devastating hurricanes, floods, and heatwaves.

“We are concerned about America because we don’t know what they’re going to do … how (it) is going to approach COP,” South African Environment Minister Dion George told Reuters.

“Mr. Trump said that he would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, but we don’t know what will happen,” George added in a telephone interview on Friday.

International partners are concerned that the prospect of an administration led by Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, will de-motivate poor and middle-income countries who want rich nations to shoulder more of its financial burden.

South Africa, which is one of the world’s top 15 greenhouse gas emitters and accounts for 30% of the continent’s emissions, has accepted $11.6 billion from rich nations, mainly in loans, for a switch from coal to renewable energy.

This is seen as a potential model for other ‘Global South’ countries who say financing pledges of $100 billion, which took years to come through, are insufficient.

“It’s certainly not enough. We need another target,” George said. “But then the question is: as the voter base is shifting in developed economies, are they actually going to pay it?”

The South African minister said he had been reassured by German officials that Europe’s stance at the COP29 climate talks will not be hurt by Berlin’s political crisis.

George said that Jennifer Morgan, Germany’s state secretary for international climate action, had contacted him to say it will be up to the European Union to maintain leadership.

“Their position is not changed and that is how they will approach COP,” George said, adding: “They’re on Team Europe. The European Union and German have clearly set out their objectives.”