Plans set for new bridge, highway
What you need to know:
The new bridge will be shorter than the 275 metre long one which was opened last year and named Kikwete Bridge in honour of the just-retired president. It was constructed at the cost of $ 56 million, being a soft loan from South Korea.
Arusha. Another bridge will be constructed over the Malagarasi River under a massive project to upgrade the Nyakanazi-Kasulu-Manyovu highway whose designs are in the final stages.
The new bridge will be shorter than the 275 metre long one which was opened last year and named Kikwete Bridge in honour of the just-retired president. It was constructed at the cost of $ 56 million, being a soft loan from South Korea.
“The new bridge will have a single lane unlike the one downstream which has two lanes,” said the principal civil engineer with the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat, Eng Hosea Nyangweso, in an interview here yesterday.
He said the proposed 202 kilometre highway would cross the Malagarasi River at a point in Kigoma Region where there is an old bridge. The upgraded road would connect Kigoma with the Lake Victoria zone regions of Kagera, Geita, Mwanza, Mara, Simiyu and Shinyanga as well as Rwanda and Uganda.
However, he could not disclose the cost of the structure because the designs of the road, whose cost is not yet known, had not been completed. But he indicated the cost would be lower because the bridge would be located upstream.
Snaking its way for 475km from the mountainous Tanzania/Burundi border through Kigoma Region, Malagarasi is the second longest river in Tanzania. It empties into Lake Tanganyika and has one of the largest inflows into the freshwater body.
The first 80km of the river forms the international boundary between Tanzania and Burundi. Several tributaries from the Burundi highlands join its right bank.
After the confluence with the Lumpungu river, the Malagarasi enters Tanzania, makes a circle and flows into the eastern side of Lake Tanganyika, some 50 km south of Kigoma town.
