By Adia Jildo
An advance team of the Lamu Port South Sudan, Ethiopia Transport Corridor (LAPSSET) comprising of 5 people have arrived in Juba to pave ways for impending third ministerial meeting.
The project is to enable infrastructural development and connectivity of the African countries in Juba.
The first and second ministerial meeting was done in Kenya and Ethiopia respectively and now the third is to be implemented in (Juba) South Sudan.
According to Adeyanka Adeyami, the team leader at the UN economic commission for Africa said that, they are going to meet minister of transport, minister of trade, vendors, Service providers and UNDP on how they preparations can be done.
He however stated that South Sudan lag behind development despite progress in other countries of Kenya and Ethiopia, saying South Sudan need to match the regional infrastructure development.
“What we have now is one country doing better than the other in terms of the phase of infrastural development. That is not a surprise because a young country like South Sudan has the challenges of a young nation so we don’t accept it to reach at the same phase,” he said.
He asserted that the project will link the East African coast of Lamu through South Sudan to the Central and West African countries.
“South Sudan which is the co-owner of the project has the potential to inter-link so many countries in terms of trade, movement of goods and services and even increasing peace and security in the sub-region,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hibamo Ayalow, the representative of the Ambassador of Ethiopia Embassy said that multimodal project is a transport system that brings similar connectivity to African countries.
“This transport project ones completed will have road networks, standard gagged railway lines, pipelines but most importantly the deviance of the LAMU is not only for the three countries,” he said.
Ayalow said the corridor will help give jobs to youth as investment and regional integration will serve interest of all countries that own the projects.
“We will also be complementing the dividends that are to be coming out of the LAMSSET project brining power connectivity to the region as well because if you want to be bringing a proper standard caged railway line, you need power,” he cited.
The acting Director General for Road transport and safety, Engineer Lado Tombe said the road connecting the South Sudan and Kenyan border is almost complete which will enable goods cross easy within the shortest time possible.
“This is very important to our business people who of course will reflect to people of South Sudan,” he said.
He called on the people of South Sudan to welcome the project to enable the corridor to succeed hence benefitting South Sudan a member country.