Uganda: a loan request of 207.77 million euros for 137 km of roads

The request, presented by Henry Musasizi, State Minister for Finance in charge of general affairs, revises the permission of €230.45 million granted by the MPs on October 30, 2025. The envelope has been reduced by €22.68 million, or nearly 9.8%. It still needs to be examined by Parliament and therefore does not constitute an officially approved or disbursed loan.

The proposed financing is divided between two facilities. The first, estimated at €179.26 million, including insurance, would be granted by Citibank under the coverage of the Trade and Investment Development Insurance (ATIDI) for the works. The second, amounting to €28.51 million, would be a direct loan from Citibank on commercial terms for land compensation, supervision, and project engineering.

According to explanations from Henry Musasizi reported after the session, the revision follows negotiations between the Ministries of Finance and Public Works, Citibank, and ATIDI. The initial structure relied on a guarantee from the Chinese credit insurer Sinosure, but it had set €100 million as its ceiling for projects that do not directly generate revenue, making the previous structure unsuitable.

A 127 km axis and 10 km of roads in Jinja

The project covers the Jinja–Mbulamuti–Kamuli–Bukungu road over 127 kilometers and 10 kilometers of roads in the city of Jinja. It plans to upgrade the main axis from a gravel road to a class II paved road.

Parliamentary documents cited by Ugandan media indicate that a works contract worth 649.57 billion Ugandan shillings, approximately €161.77 million, was signed on March 15, 2023, with PowerChina International Group Limited for the design and construction of the axis and urban roads in Jinja.

In Bukungu, the route joins the lakeside links to the districts of Amolatar, Kaberamaido, Soroti, Nakasongola, and Kayunga. The government presents the corridor as an alternative route between northern and southern Uganda, particularly serving the agricultural and commercial areas of the Busoga sub-region.

Separate financing from that of the SGR

This loan request concerns exclusively the road project. It does not finance the standard gauge railway, or SGR, between Malaba, at the Kenyan border, and Kampala. While Citibank is also involved in raising funds for the railway, the contracts, lenders, and envelopes for the two operations are separate.

For the SGR, the Ugandan government signed in 2024 with the Turkish group Yapı Merkezi a contract worth €2.7 billion for a 272-kilometer electrified line. This infrastructure is intended to connect the Ugandan network to Kenya and eventually to the corridor providing access to the port of Mombasa.

On June 16, 2026, the board of directors of the Islamic Development Bank approved €650.75 million for the SGR Malaba–Kampala. The Ugandan Ministry of Finance specified that this envelope is to finance, among other things, a 553-meter railway bridge over the Nile at Jinja, a 2.12-kilometer tunnel between Mbuya and Kampala, six train stations, and three workshops.