Other than having a foreign head of state warm the SGR seats for the first time ever, what would you say Kenya gained from Museveni’s state visit?
Following Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s visit to Kenya, Uganda is now poised to be Kenya’s biggest “auctioneer” after China.
This is without anything for Kenya to show for the Ugandan relations.
In the bilateral agreements, Kenya has now offered Uganda land to build a dry port for its cargo in Naivasha as part of the joint standard gauge railway (SGR) project.
Details and terms of the dry-port offer were not immediately clear but Mr Kenyattaโs move is widely seen as aimed at retaining and expanding the Ugandan cargo business.
It is also part of Nairobiโs reassurance on Kenyaโs commitment to keep Uganda as its biggest client for transit cargo.
This is despite Uganda being the biggest market for Kenyan goods and the biggest client to the Port of Mombasa, especially for transit cargo, ahead of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South Sudan and Rwanda.
Uganda has now remained as the largest of the hinterland market accounting for 81.9 per cent of the traffic or 6.34 million tonnes- Nation Media reports.
Kenyans online further posed questions on what exactly Kenya got from the proclaimed “bilateral relations” with the landlocked country.