Friends of the Rail Forum

President William Ruto has reversed his own policy on the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Naivasha Inland Depot after his administration announced plans to continue with the two multibillion-shilling projects. Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen on Thursday announced a planned revamp of the inland container depot that Dr Ruto had in the run-up to the August polls described as a “selfish programme to the detriment of the coastal people”. The Ruto administration is seeking additional Chinese loans in billions of shillings to extend the SGR line to Malaba even after it stoked controversy over the contract that former President Uhuru Kenyatta entered into with Beijing...

Prof X.N Iraki of the University of Nairobi said “bastardising” the dry port in the run-up to the polls was purely politics to appeal to the voters in the Coast region. He said it was clear that President Ruto was not going to reverse the SGR contract, citing his friendship with his Uganda counterpart Yoweri Museveni as having influenced the decision to extend SGR to Malaba to connect with the neighbouring country’s line. “It also makes strategic sense to extend SGR to the Uganda border. Remember our railway was originally Uganda railway,” said Prof Iraki. “Bastardising the Naivasha dry port was politics. The reality is that he has to start creating his legacy. It is also possible that the contract to extend SGR to Malaba was already signed. I had predicted that Ruto would not reverse the SGR contract. The stakes are too high. Did you notice China never talked as that controversy [on the contract] raged?”...

Recently there was an indication that Uganda was contemplating the implementation of the abandoned plan for a standard gauge railway (SGR) project from Malaba to Kampala and on to Kasese. I believe Kenya should build on this or any other opportunity offered by Uganda to implement the original plan to extend the current Mombasa/Naivasha SGR to Malaba. An uninterrupted transit of goods from Mombasa all the way to Malaba and Kampala and also beyond will reinforce project economics for the existing SGR and enable it to be financially sustainable. Further, the productivity of the Mombasa port should be concerning us when we consider the growing competitive edge enjoyed by Dar es Salaam port, which has snatched most of Rwanda's transit business from the Kenyan port...