{UAH} Bunyoro need a Railway Network - SGR Politicians Skewed Views

I have read and looked at the figures on Standard Gauge Railway and in my opinion politicians who are not engineering economists are making terrible mistakes without basic understanding of  Mega engineering project and correlation to financing and other invisible costs (unintended).

In Bunyoro we want the railway to come as soon as yesterday- let it cost what it will cost. Uganda has a fully furnished auditing department, (AG) an arm of the government which should have raised issues about that project.

But let me offer you tips I received from Professor Bent Flyvbjerg:

Professor Bent Flyvbjerg, a planning expert with the Department of Development and Planning, Aalborg University, founder and director of the university's research program on transportation infrastructure planning, author of the book about megaprojects and risk (Cambridge University Press). has written extensively about financing mega projects, which in his article Underestimating Costs in Public Works Projects Error or Lie? he thoroughly explains this issues, which should be read by Uganda Politicians.

I am not in love with the Chinese, who I believe take Africans for idiots but I will hold them accountable by using all engineering costing tools and analysis available rather than making sweeping statements where Uganda has never had or implemented any sort of project on that SGR scale. Moreover this country has no covering geo-technical data covering the entire country which make such projects very  expensive.

The same irrationalism has been used to judge KCCA project costs!

More articles from Professor Bent Flyvbjerg

- Bruzelius, N., Flyvbjerg, B., & Rothengatter, W. (1998). Big decisions, big risks: Improving accountability in mega projects. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 64(3), 423–440.

-Flyvbjerg, B. (1996). The dark side of planning: Rationality and
Realrationalität. In S. Mandelbaum, L. Mazza, & R. Burchell
(Eds.), Explorations in planning theory (pp. 383–394).
New Brunswick, NJ: Center for Urban Policy Research
Press.

- Flyvbjerg, B., Bruzelius, N., & Rothengatter, W. (in press).
Megaprojects and risk: An anatomy of ambition. Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press.

Bwanika

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Bwanika Nakyesawa Luwero

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