After a nearly 3-year repair and major maintenance period in Kisumu’s lake harbor dry dock, the rail ferry MV Uhuru will return to service, after the current inspection and certification process has been completed in early 2010.
The vessel used to operate between Kisumu and Port Bell, Kampala’s lake harbor, but was also deployed on the route between Port Bell and Mwanza in Tanzania. The added rail ferry capacity will strengthen rail transportation from both Mombasa and Dar es Salaam to Uganda.
The three-year layoff was largely caused, according to usually well-informed sources in Nairobi, by a dispute between embattled Rift Valley Railways and the Kenya Railway Corporation over who was to bear various costs related to the safe operation of the vessel.
