KIGALI - Rwanda and Uganda have set March this year for negotiations will be held on the long awaited Kampala-Kigali oil pipeline.

Emmanuel Hategeka, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Commerce said, yesterday, that the project had slowed down, but that it would be reviewed and the way forward determined.

"We are engaging and we shall review the project in March and take appropriate measures,” said Hategeka, who led a five-man delegation of government officials to the just concluded East African Petroleum Conference in Kampala.
He added that in the meeting, a clear roadmap will be designed together with the developers (TAMOIL) on how the project can be fast tracked.

There is hope that the pipeline would be extended to Bujumbura, a move many have described as an important milestone towards the region’s economic integration and development.

Meanwhile, officials from Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of  Congo (DRC) will meet with potential investors next month in Kigali to seek funding for a $500 million power plant.

"We have two of our (EAC) partner states involved in the project and it is still at the stage of political negotiations,” Jean Claude Nsengiyumva, the East African Community Deputy Secretary General (Productive Sectors) said yesterday.

It is reported that the three countries will be equal partners in the construction of the 147 megawatt Rusizi III hydropower project along their common borders and will share the energy equally.

Gedeon Nizeye, the Director of Geology in Burundi’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, was yesterday quoted as saying that the power project has risen out of the need to ease power shortage.

"Work on the project may start in 2013, with completion projected two years later,” Nizeye said.

The meeting will also include the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank and the German government.

Ends