Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and their South Sudanese counterpart Salva Kiir Mayardit are expected to attend the sixth summit on Northern Corridor Integration Projects, which takes place in Kigali today, government confirmed yesterday.

A source at the President’s Office revealed yesterday that Museveni and Kenyatta would arrive in the country today, while Kiir was expected to jet in by last evening.

The Heads of State will join President Paul Kagame and delegates from Burundi, Tanzania, and Ethiopia at the summit.

The sixth summit on Northern Corridor Integration Projects opened in Kigali on Monday, with an experts’ meeting assessing the implementation of the projects.

The national coordinator of the Northern Corridor Projects, Monique Mukaruliza, said technical teams would assess the projects and forward their recommendations to the Council of Ministers.

The ministers, who spent the entire yesterday deliberating on recommendations from technical teams, will submit their report of the recommendations’ assessment to the Heads of State at the summit today.

The ministers at the meeting yesterday included Finance and Economic Planning minister Claver Gatete, Burundi’s Denise Sinankwa, who is a senior advisor to the president, Uganda’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa, Kenya’s Michael Kamau, the Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure, and Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

South Sudan was represented at the meeting by Dr Barnaba Marial Benjamin Bil, the minister for foreign affairs.

Projects

Some of the projects that were to be assessed included the standard gauge railway that will connect Kigali to Mombasa port through Uganda.

Other projects that were discussed by the experts include the construction of a regional oil pipeline that will connect Kigali to Eldoret via Kampala, a regional power project, and fast tracking political federation.

Today’s Heads of State summit on the integration projects is expected to be attended by other high level officials, including Jin-Yong Cai, the chief executive of International Finance Corporation, an institution affiliated to the World Bank and offers investment, advisory and asset management services to encourage private sector development in developing countries.

Jin-Yong is expected to make some commitments on the financing of the regional oil pipeline as well as the Mombasa–Kigali standard gauge railway line that is estimated to cost about $13.5 billion.

Tanzania and Ethiopia are attending the meeting as observers.