How URC’s MV Kabalega turned from Shs 6bn asset to Shs 1,000 token

What the report says

The Observer reports that Uganda Railways Corporation’s Lake Victoria ferry system, once a major part of the country’s rail network, has been reduced to a shadow of its former role after years of decline and the 2005 sinking of MV Kabalega. The article says the vessel has remained underwater since it collided with MV Kaawa on May 8, 2005, yet URC still carried it on its books for years as a multi-billion-shilling asset. A Treasury Memorandum cited by the paper placed Kabalega’s value at Shs 5.76 billion as of June 30, 2021, even though auditors said its worth could not be verified because the ferry had not been recovered.

URC later cut the recorded value of the submerged vessels to Shs 1,000 in 2021/22 while it awaited offers to retrieve them. The story places Kabalega within a wider history of Lake Victoria as part of Uganda’s railway corridor, with wagon ferries moving cargo between Port Bell and Jinja and onward to Mwanza and Kisumu, linking to rail lines in Tanzania and Kenya. The article also notes that URC once operated other marine assets, including a dry dock, service launch, small passenger ferry and motorised lighter, some of which are no longer clearly traceable in the available records.

The Observer says the ferry system was rebuilt after the breakup of the East African Railways and Harbours Corporation, with major investment in the late 1970s and early 1980s. World Bank records cited in the piece show the ferries once moved large cargo volumes, including hundreds of thousands of tonnes in some years. The collapse of this system, and the unresolved status of the sunken vessel, is presented as an example of the broader challenge of tracking public assets over time.