The OPEC Fund for International Development is appraising a €150mn (Shs696.6bn) loan for Uganda’s Standard Gauge Railway as the government seeks to conclude financing for the €2.7bn project by January 2027.

A team from the Vienna-based lender arrived in Uganda over the weekend and plans to tour the Malaba–Kampala corridor this week, according to a statement issued by the railway’s project office on Monday. The fund is targeting board approval by November 30.

The mission will review designs, implementation arrangements, disbursement plans and environmental and social safeguards before making recommendations to the board. “So, we do not have a lot of time,” Kemi Afun-Ogidan, the fund’s senior country manager, said at Monday’s meeting with project managers, according to the statement.

The finance ministry said in June that the government was targeting financial close by November 2026. The project office’s latest statement gives January 2027 as the target for concluding financing, without explaining the difference between the two dates.

The railway has a 48-month implementation period from effective commencement, which depends on concluding financing, the project office said. If that period began in January 2027, it would run to early 2031.

Preparatory work has already taken place. Contractor Yapi Merkezi has largely completed early works under a €75mn government-funded arrangement, including a sleeper factory, batching plant and materials laboratory at its Iganga camp, according to the statement.

The project office’s financing framework allocates up to about 60 per cent of the cost to export credit agencies, approximately 25 per cent to development lenders and about 15 per cent to the government. The statement says the government plans to raise its €405mn share through a sukuk, or Islamic bond.

The Islamic Development Bank approved €650.75mn for the Malaba–Kampala railway in June. If the OPEC Fund proposal is approved, financing approved by the two lenders would total about €801mn, equivalent to roughly 30 per cent of the stated project cost.

That would exceed the indicative €675mn allocation for development lenders. The statement does not explain whether the funding mix has changed or how the two loans fit within it.

The OPEC Fund’s proposed loan still requires board approval. The project office’s statement does not name the export credit agencies expected to provide the largest share of financing or set out the status of their commitments.