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Tanzania SGR Construction Project Seeks More Funding in Europe as Turkish Firm Derailed
Tanzania SGR Project has decided to seek funds for the construction of the railway in the country as the contractor of the project, Turkish contractor, Yapi Merkezi has been recently showing signs of financial distress. The government of Tanzania has gotten back on track to raise funds for the completion of the first three phases of the project which covers a distance of 2,100 kilometers in case the Turkish contractor chooses to drop out.
Yapi Merkezi currently is at a standoff it its workers of have been assigned to the Tanzania SGR project. The Turkish company which partnered it the Portuguese firm Mota-Engil Africa, is currently implementing the first, second, and the third Lots of the projects covering a total of 1,090 kilometers. The finials of Tanzania stated that the project is going on well and that the first two phases being handled by the two companies of Yapi and Mota-Engil are 98% and 95% complete respectively. The third Lot is currently at 67% complete.
The finance minister of Tanzania, Mwigulu Nchemba was on a European tour in the second half of the month of September. The minister managed to bag a couple of pledges from Spain and Sweden for the Tanzania SGR project which will cost a total of $10.4 billion when fully complete. Saada Mkuya who is the Minister of finance of Zanzibar also stated that they had secured quite a number of commitments from the African Development Bank..
During his visit to Sweden, the finance minister of Tanzania was engaged in talks with the officials from Sweden of Exports Credits Guarantee Board (EKN) which acted as a guarantor for many banks that were financing Lots 1 and 2 of the Tanzania SGR. The African Development Bank pledge of $3 billion was made at the Korea-Arica Economic Cooperation conference that was held in Busan, South Korea in target of the sixth and seventh Lots the Tanzania SGR Project. |
