Strabag-Led Group Among Four to Bid for $1.4 Billion Uganda Road

(Bloomberg) -- Uganda picked four groups of companies, including a consortium led by Strabag SE, to bid for the construction of a 95-kilometer (59-mile) toll road worth about $1.4 billion.

A China Communications Construction Co. and China First Railway Engineering Co. joint venture, CCSK Consortium of China and a group led by Portugal’s KJ Connect are the others cleared for the Kampala-Jinja Expressway, the Uganda National Roads Authority said on Twitter. The groups were selected from eight groups that pre-qualified for the project in September, it said.

The African Development Bank and the French Development Agency, which are financing the project, gave a “no objection” to the groups picked to compete, it said.

AfBD approved a $229.5 million loan for the road linking the capital, Kampala, to Jinja town in the east, it said last month. The European Union and the French Development Agency will provide $400 million, while selected private developers will raise $800 million.

The winning bidder will manage the road for 30 years, including a five-year construction period under a public-private partnership, according to the authority. The expressway is part of the so-called Northern Corridor that links Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Ojambo in Kampala at fojambo@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Richardson at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net, Helen Nyambura

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