company news about Uganda's $2.9 Billion Railway Breaks Ground — Why HOWO Trucks Win the Construction Race

UsedHowoTrucks.com — April 9, 2026

Kenya and Uganda Break Ground on the SGR Extension

Construction of one of East Africa's most consequential infrastructure projects is now underway. On March 19, 2026, Kenyan President William Ruto broke ground at Motonyi in Narok County, officially launching the Naivasha–Kisumu–Malaba Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) extension. The ceremony was followed days later at Kibos in Kisumu County, where both Ruto and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni jointly marked the start of the Kisumu–Malaba section. Uganda's own Malaba–Kampala segment, a 272-kilometre line contracted to Turkish firm Yapı Merkezi, targets April 2026 for full construction start. (Source: Capital FM Kenya / Construction Review Online, March 2026)

The combined project — a $943 million Kenyan extension and a $2.9 billion Ugandan line — forms a continuous rail corridor connecting the Port of Mombasa to Kampala, with eventual extensions planned toward Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the most significant new transport infrastructure mobilisation in East and Central Africa since the original Mombasa–Nairobi SGR opened in 2017.

Scale and Timeline of the Two-Country Build

The Kenyan section covers approximately 369 kilometres from Naivasha through Narok, Bomet, Kericho, and Kisumu to Malaba on the Ugandan border, implemented by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) — the same contractor that built the existing Nairobi–Naivasha line. The Ugandan segment stretches a further 272 kilometres from Malaba to Kampala under Yapı Merkezi's turnkey contract, with a four-year construction programme. When complete, the full corridor is projected to carry up to 30 million tonnes of cargo annually and reduce the cost of moving a container from Mombasa to Kampala from approximately $3,500 by road to around $2,000 by rail — a saving of more than 40%.

For now, both lines are in their most equipment-intensive phase: site clearing, earthworks, embankment formation, bridge construction, and ballasting across hundreds of kilometres of varied terrain including the Great Rift Valley escarpment, Kericho's tea country, and the flatlands approaching Lake Victoria. This is the phase that runs on diesel and heavy dump trucks around the clock.

Thousands of Trucks Currently Run This Corridor

The Northern Corridor highway from Mombasa through Nairobi to Malaba and on to Kampala is currently one of Africa's busiest road freight routes. Uganda received nearly 70% of its 7.37 million tonnes of cargo through Mombasa Port in the first half of 2025 alone, virtually all of it moved by road. Kenya's Transport Cabinet Secretary Davis Chirchir described the extension as a solution to a corridor "currently serviced predominantly by trucks," carrying thousands of heavy vehicles daily and generating severe wear on the road network.

The majority of those trucks are HOWO-based. Used HOWO tractor trucks pulling 40-foot containers dominate the Mombasa–Kampala run, favoured by Kenyan and Ugandan fleet operators for their parts availability in Nairobi, Eldoret, and Kampala markets and their proven durability on both tarmac and deteriorated road sections near the Ugandan border. When the SGR eventually absorbs a significant share of this freight, long-haul tractor demand will shift — but that transition is years away. In the immediate term, construction of the railway itself is driving a separate, concentrated surge in equipment demand.

What Construction Phase Means for Truck Demand

A 369-kilometre railway build across mixed terrain requires an enormous volume of aggregate, sand, fill material, concrete, and steel moved continuously to worksites strung across the entire alignment. CCCC — which ran more than 25,000 workers on the original Mombasa–Nairobi line — will deploy similar logistics on the Kenyan extension. Every access road cut to the right-of-way, every embankment raised, every bridge approach filled, and every ballast layer laid involves repeated cycles of used HOWO 6x4 dump trucks and used HOWO tipper trucks hauling material from quarry to formation.

On the Ugandan side, Yapı Merkezi's contract explicitly requires up to 40% of project value to go to Ugandan suppliers and workers, and cement, steel, and aggregates to be sourced locally wherever they meet international standards. That local content clause means Ugandan subcontractors — most of whom run HOWO-based fleets — are positioned to win haulage, earthworks, and materials supply contracts along the Malaba–Kampala alignment. Qingdao Alston Motors Co., Ltd supplies verified used HOWO units matched to the specific duty cycles of East African construction projects, with documentation and inspection support that meets the compliance requirements of large international contractors.

Why HOWO Is the Right Truck for This Job

Railway construction in East Africa's interior presents specific challenges that make the HOWO platform a logical choice. The Narok–Kericho terrain involves steep gradients, seasonal mud, and remote quarry access roads that punish less robust drivetrains. The Malaba–Kampala corridor in Uganda passes through areas with limited workshop access and long distances between urban centres. In both contexts, the HOWO's mechanical simplicity, torque output, and spare-parts coverage at Kenyan and Ugandan stockists give it a decisive practical edge over technically complex alternatives.

Used HOWO 371HP dump trucks and used HOWO 8x4 dump trucks are the configurations most in demand for railway earthworks, providing the payload and axle strength to handle oversize ballast aggregate loads on unprepared site roads. Used HOWO mixer trucks are critical for bridge pier and viaduct construction along the route. For contractors mobilising fleets ahead of this construction season, a well-inspected used HOWO from 2016 to 2019 offers the right combination of structural integrity and verifiable maintenance history without the capital commitment of new equipment.

What Buyers Should Act On Now

The SGR construction window creates a clear procurement opportunity. Subcontractors and earthworks firms tendering for segments of the Kenyan or Ugandan alignments need equipment on-site at short notice — typical project timelines do not allow the lead time of ordering new trucks from China. The used HOWO market, with units already in-country or in transit, is the practical sourcing channel. Buyers should prioritise frame and chassis condition, engine hours, and tipping mechanism reliability for dump-truck applications, and drum integrity and hydraulic condition for concrete mixers. China's 2026 used vehicle export regulations — requiring 180 days of vehicle registration before export — make documentation verification non-negotiable; buyers importing directly should confirm export compliance paperwork before committing.

For fleet operators currently running the Mombasa–Kampala road corridor, the medium-term outlook is a gradual modal shift as the SGR matures — but that process will take years after the line opens, and road freight volumes on feeder routes to SGR terminals will remain strong. Operators who upgrade aging used HOWO trucks now position themselves for both the construction phase windfall and the longer-term last-mile logistics opportunity that the railway's inland depots will generate.

Sources

• Capital FM Kenya — Ruto launches construction of Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba SGR extension (March 19, 2026)
• Construction Review Online — Kenya and Uganda launch $943M Phase 2C of the Naivasha-Kisumu-Malaba SGR extension (March 2026)