Why Uganda-Dar pipeline deal is a wake-up call for Kenya

An oil pipeline linking Uganda’s oil fields to Lamu Port is one of Lapsset’s flagship projects. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

The announcement that Uganda and Tanzania had signed an agreement to build an oil pipeline between the former’s oil fields and Tanga Port did not surprise analysts following the ping-pong game between Kampala, Nairobi and Dar-es-salaam.

This should not have surprised Kenyan policy makers, either, because Uganda had contracted Total, a local investor, to conduct a feasibility study on the crude oil pipeline and the French company had made no bones about its preference for the Southern route.