Samuel Balagadde
18 November 2008
Kampala — THE land title for the 16- hectare Uganda Railways Corporation (URC) main workshop at Nalukolongo is missing.
Godfrey Mwanja, the production manager of Rift Valley Railways (RVR), the concessionaire for URC, said some people had taken advantage of the missing land title to claim ownership of some parts of the land.
"Though we are tenants of Uganda Railways, we are concerned about this land, which can be grabbed by people. All residents were compensated by the Government in the 1970s before the workshop was put in place," Mwanja explained.
He said efforts were in place to ensure the land gets a title in order to do away with those people claiming ownership after so many years have passed.
Mwanja, who was briefing a delegation from the transport sector that included MPs who toured the workshop to assess its operations and challenges, said their operational costs were high.
However, Henry Arinaitwe, the assistant URC engineer, said they were briefed by RVR about reviving the passenger train in order to ease transport, especially during peak hours.
Dan Katabira, the RVR operations manager, said they were operating below capacity since some locomotives were grounded due to problems like lack of spare parts.
Katabira said they were trying to minimise accidents by equipping drivers with the necessary knowledge since 75% of the accidents were a result of human error.
Hon Nathan Byanyima (Bukanga) asked the Government to immediately revive railway transport in order to mitigate the gap in transportation of bulky commodities from Mombasa.
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